Social Communication During Play Across Language Environments in Nonvocal Preschool-Age Children with ASD from English and Non-English Speaking Families

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of social communication acts exhibited by nonvocal preschool-aged autistic children across different language environments. Participants from English and non-English-speaking families were exposed to social interactions with a bilingual interventionist who interacted with the participant in two conditions: English and non-English (world language). Results of this study indicated that there were differences in social communication acts across participants, but not within participants across language environments. Participants did not appear to discriminate between language environments, which supports previous research suggesting that there are no harmful effects in exposing autistic children to more than one language and parents should not be discouraged from encouraging bilingualism with their autistic children. Implications of the findings, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.