Pragmatic Assessment in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Comparison of a Standard Measure with Parent Report

The purpose of this study was to investigate the concurrent validity of subtests on the "Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language" (CASL) by comparing them with the assessment of communication and social skills on the "Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales" ("Vineland"). The participants were 35 children and adolescents with higher functioning autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who had received both the CASL and the "Vineland." Results of the study suggest that the Pragmatic Judgment and Inferences subtests of the CASL appeared to document the difficulties that individuals with ASD had in adaptive use of language for communication. (Contains 4 tables.)