Newsgroups: bit.listserv.autism
Date:         Fri, 24 Jul 1992 11:00:38 EDT
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         Lisa S Lewis <LISAS@PUCC.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: No Subject Given
              23 Jul 1992 18:12:31 PDT from <ungierl@CCMAIL.ORST.EDU>

On Thu, 23 Jul 1992 18:12:31 PDT Leon Ungier said:

>On a different subject.  Carolyn mentioned
>about the difficulty her daughter has with learning pronouns. I remember
>vividly how long it took David to compreehend the fact that we
>say "You" to someone but "I" when refering to yourself. He would
>just say 'you want juice', meaning 'I want juice' then, gradualy
>he started to refer to himself by his name like 'David wants
>juice, David doesn't want to go to bed, and so on. Now he refers
>to himself in normal way which to me means that you can teach him
>(and presumably others) almost anything though the learning is
>infinitesmaly slow. I was told that what we are usualy taking for
>granted ('you' becomes 'I' and vice versa depending on a reference frame)
>is actualy quite an abstract idea. To be fair, I should probably

Pronoun reversal is one of the hallmarks of autistic speech.  Many children
with other developmental delays and disabilities have problems with speech,
but very few consistently reverse pronouns. [Note: normally developing
children often go through a stage of reversing pronouns, but they straighten
them out very quickly. It is the persistence of reversal that is character-
istic of autism.]

Some shrinks maintained that this reversal indicates a psychological problem,
I can't remember whether it was supposed to be poor ego formation or what.
Generally it is now believed that it is simply consistent with learning to
speak via echolalia.  Many children are repeating what they hear and do not
"get" that the pronoun shifts with the referrant.  "Do you want a cookie?"
"you want a cookie" [rather than YES, or "I" want a cookie.]

A normal speaker will easily notice how incredibly confusing pronouns are,
when trying to correct the reversal.  "you want a cookie!" "No, you say, *I*
want a cookie." Forget it!  The only way to clear it up is to simplify it:
"do you want a cookie" "You want a cookie." "Say: *I* want a cookie."
It does work, but it takes lots of patience and persistence (we're still
working on it with our four year old.)

Third person pronouns seem to come MUCH more easily, presumably because
they don't change in the same way.

On the subject of bilingual homes; it's pretty well established that
normally developing children learn both languages,but are generally
slower at getting both than children exposed to only one language.
(I know of one family that was speaking three languages; their child
began to stutter and then stopped speaking. They were advised to choose
a language and stick with it and she began to talk again,a nd picked
up language very fast.)  I know that young kids learn a new language
with much greater ease than adults, but there must be some critical
period of acquistion during which more than one language is confusing
(maybe, perhaps?)

In any event, while it's great for normally developing kids to be exposed
to two languages early, I wouldn't want to further confuse an autistic child
that way.  My husband has always spoken French with his mother, but INSISTS
that she speak (her poor) English in front of Sam.  [BTW, my husband spoke
only French until the age of seven, but he learned English within months of
moving here and speaks it without a French accent.]

But I digress...to finish up on pronouns...our speech therapist said that it
is fairly vital to correct those pronouns while a child is very young. She
said that some kids never get them turned around (even very verbal ones) the
right way, and that it is extremely stigmatizing for them.  Since it IS
possible to get them right with work, it is worth doing.

Lisa
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