Article Link

Since a couple people seem to be interested, here is a link to the article I mentioned in my previous post. For everyone who is too lazy to open it, I'll summarize it.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzYV_fxDrzE_aXRmTUtTQVQ3WUE

Gibson, the first author, observed her son (who had language delays) from when he was about two and a half to about age four. She kept a detailed log of all the words he comprehended, and later, all the words he spoke or signed. Along with Ingram, she analyzed this data, and found that even though the onset of language comprehension and production was significantly delayed (Graeme, the subject, was nearly three when he understood his 50th word, while in a study by Benedict of developing children, the mean age at which the 50th word was understood was about one), the rate of acquisition once certain milestones were hit were relatively normal. Specifically, Graeme underwent "word spurts" similar to those experienced by most children that were merely occurred later than usual.

Dr. Ingram informed me that today, Graeme would most likely be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, just like Quince. This paper was published in 1983, when far fewer children were diagnosed with the disorder. However, I don't believe that Graeme's process of language acquisition is very similar to Quince's, which demonstrates the diversity within the autism community. Quince's comprehension is far more advanced than his production, and his production rate is far slower and more steady than Graeme's spurts of progress. This is probably because Quince doesn't struggle with the concept of producing words to communicate and label objects, but rather the physical production of the words themselves, especially in muscle coordination.

Even though the article isn't particularly applicable to Quince specifically, it was still interesting to read and very informative. Right now, I am working my way through Gibson's dissertation, which is over 400 pages of analysis, background, and further research centering on the same diary study analyzed by the previously-described article. This dissertation is even more interesting than the paper; written almost thirty years later, it is significantly more recent and relevant to the field.