Autism is a developmental condition involving a triad of social impairments: in social relationships, communication, and imagination (Wing and Gould, 1979). Rapin and Allen (1987) commented that one subtype of developmental language disorder - ’semantic-pragmatic syndrome’ - was frequently seen, in a severe form, in verbal children with autism. In children with ’semantic-pragmatic’ disorder, the onset of language use is delayed, and when language emerges it is accompanied by echolalia, jargon and auditory inattention. When they are older, such children use superficially complex language with clear articulation but have difficulty with the use and understanding of language, interpreting over-literally and using language inappropriately in conversation. There has been debate as to whether semantic-pragmatic language disorder forms part of the disorders of the autistic spectrum.
Language has canonical components such as phonology, syntax and lexical semantics, but other non-componential, non-literal and context-bound aspects of language are involved in its use in social discourse. The exercise of these pragmatic language skills relies upon the integrity of broader cognitive functions concerned with the processing of social information. Language use also involves the broader skills of attention and drawing inferences.
The study of social cognition has been concerned both with the nature of social knowledge and with the nature of cognitive processes involved in the perception and interpretation of the social world (Ostrom 1984). It has been suggested that the social impairments found in autism are linked to an inability to mentalise, a lack of understanding of mental states: of a ‘theory of mind’ (Baron-Cohen 1989, Frith 1989).
