ABSTRACT
Delays and deficits in the acquisition of language are often reported for children with a wide range of neurodevelopmental disorders such as Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, and autism (Tager-Flusberg, 1999a). A key issue in the field of language disorders is whether there are common or unique developmental profiles of language deficit among children with different kinds of disorders. More specifically, do children with certain neurodevelopmental disorders show patterns of language deficit similar to those that have been described for children with specific language impairment (SLI)? This chapter explores this question by focusing on children with autism. It first reviews the interesting parallels and potential overlaps between autism and SLI. It then presents evidence from an ongoing study supporting the view that there is a subgroup of children with autism that have deficits in language identical to those found in children with SLI. Consideration is then given to the implications of this overlap between autism and SLI in relation to common genetic and neurobiological mechanisms. The final section compares language impairments in both these complex disorders, autism and SLI, to other genetically based neurodevelopmental disorders, and addresses the question regarding the specificity of the profile of impairments found in SLI.
