ABSTRACT
In her classic work on early language development, Bates (1979) poetically identifies “two moments at the dawn of language.” According to Bates and others (e.g., Bruner, 1983; Harding & Golinkoff, 1979; Werner & Kaplan, 1963) two significant developmental reorganizations that set the stage for subsequent language acquisition occur around the end of the first year. The first “moment” involves the development of communicative intentions. Starting at around 9 months, infants begin to show awareness of the effects their signals have on others. This awareness brings about qualitative change, as signals become intentional messages directed to others. The second “moment” is the emergence of symbols. Starting at around 11 to 13 months, infants begin to comprehend signs as being both substitutable for, and yet separate from, their referents. This enables them to acquire communicative symbolic gestures and words. Of course, neither moment is actually a moment, but rather involves an extended course of development, beginning around the ages just mentioned. Autism provides an especially interesting perspective on these developmental reorganizations, as it involves specific impairment in both communicative and symbolic functioning. In fact, these impairments are even considered by several theoretical accounts to be central to the disorder (e.g., Baron-Cohen, 1995; Hobson, 1993; Leslie & Happé, 1989; Mundy, Sigman, & Kasari, 1993). Nevertheless, children with autism do show developmental change in communicative intent and symbolic functioning as mental age and linguistic skills increase. The purpose of this chapter is to integrate existing literature in order to provide a description of developmental change in autism. Contrasts between the course of development in autism and typical development are used to address issues regarding the nature of the impairments in autism as well as the nature of typical developmental processes.
