Communicative spontaneity of children with autism: a preliminary analysis.

The communicative spontaneity of children with autism who had limited spoken language in their natural environment was investigated. This naturalistic observation is a preliminary study using a continuum model to describe the nature of communicative spontaneity. The results indicate that the level of communicative spontaneity in the natural environment varied (1) along a continuum, (2) across communicative forms, functions, activities, partners and consequences, and (3) across the effectiveness of requesting and rejecting functions. The findings from this study may provide some directions for future study.