Poor Social Communication Skills in Children with Asperger’s and High-Functioning Autism
While a youngster with classic autism may have great difficulty communicating (or be mute), a youngster with Asperger's (AS) or High-Functioning Autism (HFA) will usually be able to communicate, but often experiences complications in social interaction – especially with friends and classmates. These complications can be severe or mild depending on the child. Social and communicative deficits are arguably the most handicapping conditions associated with AS and HFA. Although the term “social communication” is used frequently to encompass these deficits, social communication is actually a redundant term. All communication, by its definition as an exchange of information between speaker and listener, is social in nature. Communication problems in the AS or HFA child include: abrupt transitions auditory perception deficits Echolalia literal interpretations miscomprehension of nuance oddities in loudness, pitch, intonation, prosody and rhythm unusually pedantic, for