ABSTRACT
Follow-up studies have consistently indicated that the development of language is a crucial indicator of later outcome in autism. Unless some useful speech is acquired by around the age of six years, future development is likely to be severely limited. Very few individuals who fail to achieve spoken language by this age later develop complex speech, although there are of course occasional exceptions to this. Cases have been reported of individuals who did not begin to speak until their teens, and Jim Sinclair (1992), for example, notes that he did not learn to use speech to communicate until the age of twelve. Howlin et al. (2004) also found that several individuals who were using little or no speech when assessed around the age of five, six or seven later went on to become very fluent speakers. On the whole, however, the level of language acquired after this stage is generally very limited. Overall, approximately 30 per cent of individuals with autism remain without useful speech but, even amongst those who do learn to talk, significant impairments may continue throughout adulthood.
