Speech Development of Children with ASD: A Neuropsychological Approach

Effective identification, support, and development of children’s abilities is a priority task of the education system in Russia. This demands deeper research based on the use of modern diagnostic technologies and neuropsychological tools, especially in what concerns children with impaired development, such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Neuropsychological rehabilitation of children with ASD remains a poorly understood yet critical problem. Here, we explore common neuropsychological tools employed in Russia for diagnostics and therapy of ASD in childhood. The prospects of these methods to study the speech characteristics of such children were substantiated. The study is based on a survey of 20 parents of 20 children aged 4–6 years who attend the “WE ARE TOGETHER” Special Kindergarten for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders at Kazan Federal University (Russia). The speech characteristics of the children, starting from an early age, were thoroughly investigated during the experiment with the help of neuropsychological tools. The latter included game tasks to test social, cognitive, motor, neurodynamic, and regulatory skills, as well as the analysis of the transcripts of the interviews with both children and their parents. The results obtained facilitate the introduction of the neuropsychological approach to diagnose speech disorders in preschool children with ASD, and it can be further improved by experts in the rehabilitation and education of children exhibiting ASD symptoms.