Language and ASD Diagnosis

Another post by me on language---because I've been writing about this novel and its author's use of "pidgin or Hawaii Creole English? because Charlie's been echoing a lot of phrases we've been saying lately, and very clearly (and with a pleased smile on his face)? The mother of a 17-month-old child recently posted this question on a BabyCenter forum:

Can an ASD tot have a huge vocabulary?

My answer is, oh yes, and that even though my own son did not at the time he was diagnosed. (Indeed, for Charlie, it was his lack of language and of any means to communicate that alerted us to his having developmental delays.) As Dora and I wrote on the What is autism? page for this site, one feature of autism is:

Non-standard ways of learning and approaching problem solving. For example, learning "difficult" tasks (e.g. calculus) before "simple" tasks (e.g. addition), difficulty with "executive functions," or being simultaneously gifted at tasks requiring fluid intelligence and intellectually disabled at tasks requiring verbal skills.

An individual might be able to speak with a large vocabulary, but may not yet know all the meanings or functional uses of words. Many of my friends have children on the spectrum who are hyperlexic and can read beyond their age level, but don't seem (yet) able to comprehend all about what they're reading. (And also note Dora's post yesterday on mono-sensing and understanding speech.)

While a young child not developing language---not speaking---is one sign that leads a parent (like Jim and me) to have their child evaluated for autism, it might be said that too many words might be a sign of "something," too. Not that the parent of a child who talks a lot should necessarily be thinking about autism, when it comes to diagnosing autism in a child, there's a lot more to it than language.

Photo from Unikeep.com.