Predicate Use in Spontaneous Language of Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Objectives: The use of predicates serves as a key indicator of syntactic and pragmatic development during early sentence formation stages. This study aimed to examine the characteristics of predicate use in spontaneous utterances of preschool children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), focusing on frequency and diversity of usage. Methods: Participants included 15 preschool children with ASD, 15 typically developing (TD) children matched for chronological age (CA), and 15 TD children matched for language age (LA), for a total of 45 children. Spontaneous utterances were collected using a responsive procedure involving books and toys. Predicate use within 50 utterances per child was analyzed. For each group, NTP (frequency of total predicates) and NDP (number of different predicates) were measured and compared, including subcategories of main and auxiliary predicates. Results: Children with ASD showed significant differences in predicate frequency and diversity only when compared with the CA-matched TD group. Specifically, significant differences were found in the frequency of verbs, adjectives, and total main predicates, as well as in the diversity of auxiliary verbs and total auxiliary predicates compared to the CA-matched group. Conclusion: The findings suggest that while predicate use in children with ASD is more limited than in CA-matched peers, it is comparable to that of children with similar language levels. The results are discussed in terms of the linguistic and social-communicative development of children with ASD.