Comprehension

Comprehension of language involves how we understand spoken, written, and non-verbal language. The comprehension of language is a complex process which involves understanding of the sound system, the grammar system, the social conventions (includes gesture, facial expression, sayings, and tone of voice), and typical memory and processing skills.

Comprehension difficulties in ASD may include:

• Individual may not respond to own name without a touch or visual prompt (more likely in the younger child).
• Individual may have auditory memory and/or processing difficulties. He may take longer to interpret what is heard (for example, have you ever tried to learn a second language and asked speakers to slow down, or have you ever laughed at a loud party when you actually only caught half of what was said?)
• This may lead to a delayed response from the person, or only part of the instruction may be carried out. This is because the individual was still processing or was unable to hold all of the information in memory for long enough to complete the directions.
• Individual may have difficulty with more complex sentences such as;
  • passive verb tense, "She was followed by Susie,"
  • embedded clauses, "Follow that boy, the one with brown hair, to the other side of the pool,";
  • pronouns, "my turn" versus "your turn"; time and sequencing concepts, "First I will go, then Susie will follow me, and John, you will be last," or "Kick the ball before you run to the net".
• Individual may have difficulty with abstract language, for example, "If you do really well in this activity, your parents and I will be very proud of you". Or concepts such as, the "tooth fairy", or "Santa Claus" may hold no meaning.
• Individual may have difficulty using past experience to make decisions about present or future situations. He may therefore show difficulty learning from his own mistakes.
• Individual may remember skills as relevant to a particular situation and demonstrate difficulty transferring skills across activities or into new surroundings. For example, may learn what "jump" means when jumping on the bed at home, but may not know what to do when asked to "jump" rope in the gym.
• Repetition of verbal information does not necessarily demonstrate that the individual has understood what was said.