Demonstration of a method for assessing semantic organization and category membership in individuals with autism spectrum disorders and receptive vocabulary limitations.

A recognized challenge in the field of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is the assessment of the individual skills and preferences of potential users of AAC. Particularly in cognitive assessment, many traditional methods are inappropriate because they require the participant to produce a verbal response and/or involve complex verbal instructions. For individuals with limited verbal forms of language, failure at such tasks is relatively uninstructive, either for revealing their functional intellectual status or for developing effective interventions. This paper presents a demonstration of a method developed to evaluate category structure and, thus, semantic organization in individuals with limited verbal skills concomitant to autism spectrum disorder. This method offers a promising tool for assessing clients for AAC. Further potential uses of this method, both clinically and in research, are discussed.