& centerdot; The Narrative Scoring Scheme (NSS; Heilmann et al. 2010) is a scoring grid that assesses a story's macrostructure. It has been validated for use with young neurotypically developing English monolingual children. However, it has not been validated with school-aged bilingual and monolingual children on the autism spectrum (AS), even though many of these children have dif-ficulty with macrostructure. Given the potential differences in performances between 1) younger and older children, 2) children with a neurotypical development and those on the autism spectrum, 3) between bilinguals and monolinguals, we examined the psychometric properties of the NSS with bilingual and monolingual school-aged children on the autism spectrum. Storytelling and recall tasks were completed when children were 8.5-9 (n=66) and 10.5-11 years old (n=112). Outputs were scored by trained coders using the NSS. Interrater reliability, construct validity, and internal consistency were examined. We found high interrater reliability for Total scores, adequate construct validity, and high internal consistency across ages and conditions. There were also a few differences in the NSS's psychometric properties based on bilingual/monolingual groups assignment. We can conclude that the NSS is a fairly reliable and valid tool to use with school-aged bilingual and monolingual children on the autism spectrum
center dot Little is known about the expressive vocabularies of young children with bilingual language difficulties. The present study investigated the individual variability present in the expressive vocabulary skills of 3-year-olds with language difficulties, raised in a bilingual context where Mal-tese and English are spoken nationwide and hold majority status. Ten Maltese children aged 36-45 months, who had been diagnosed with language difficulties in the absence of significant biomedical conditions, participated in this study. A sample of younger typically-developing Maltese children was matched to the clinical group for vocabulary size. All children received predominantly Maltese language exposure in their daily settings. Central tendencies and range of variation in vocabulary production were measured through a bilingual vocabulary checklist completed by the parents. Re-ported vocabulary measures were compared to words elicited from the children on a non-standardized picture naming task. Group-and individual-level analyses revealed substantial variability in participants' vocabulary size. In contrast with measures for the typically-developing group, picture naming and checklist scores for the children with language difficulties were non-commensurate, in-dicating inaccuracies in parental reporting. Validation of parent-completed vocabulary checklists on typically-developing children does not necessarily imply similar levels of accuracy when employed with clinical populations. In monolingual and bilingual children with language difficulties whose input language/s lack normative data, multiple vocabulary measures that include direct assessment are called for, to minimize reporting bias.
Bilingualism is increasingly common, yet parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are often advised to use only one language due to concerns about language delays. This practice may limit communication, increase stress, and weaken familial bonds. However, emerging research suggests that bilingual exposure does not negatively impact language development in autistic children and may offer social, emotional, and cognitive benefits. This case study illustrates the implementation and outcomes of Cooperative Parent-Mediated Therapy (CPMT) in a bilingual family with a nonverbal, 3-year old child with ASD. The parents, native Swahili speakers also flu-ent in Italian, sought to support bilingual development through intervention. Parent-mediated interventions for ASD are recommended by international guidelines. Empowering parents as active participants maximizes opportunities for early therapeutic support. Parent-child interactions play a crucial role for autistic children, who typically experience limited social communication, especially in early developmental stages within familiar environments. CPMT, delivered through Italy's national health system, is based on Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions. It includes 15 ses-sions over 6 months, using live coaching, video feedback, and caregiver capacity-building strategies. Techniques such as ostensive communication, motherese, and gestures were employed in both Swahili and English. The child showed increased communicative intent and nonverbal communication, joint attention, and social engagement. In addition, parents reported reduced stress. CPMT supported bilingualism and enhanced parent-child interaction, supporting the family's bilingualism and the child's development. With growing rates of ASD diagnosis and increasing cultural/linguistic diversity, further clinical and experimental attention to this issue is clearly warranted.
The present study describes the story of Lorenzo, a 25-year-old young man affected by multiple disabilities, namely, deafness and autism, and his path towards social inclusion and personal autonomy, which could be achieved thanks to the particular method applied in the "Casa delle Luci" Foundation. His story witnesses to the numerous difficulties that the combination of a sensorial deficit with autism-related functioning often entails, in addition to the issues caused by countless different barriers in the social context. Bimodal bilingualism, which in Lorenzo's case associates Italian Sign Language (LIS) and Italian language, combined with the multimodal method applied by the aforementioned "Casa delle Luci" Foundation, based on the integration between multiple communication channels and tools, caused a significant turn in Lorenzo's life. This boy could overcome his linguistic difficulties, thereby improving his social and relational abilities and reducing the isolation to which young people with serious communicative disabilities are often exposed. The type of educational assistance and the environment ensured by the "Casa delle Luci" provided Lorenzo with opportunities for growth and social inclusion, which allowed him to be in charge of his own life. Lorenzo's story demonstrates that psychological support focused on the communicative needs of people with relevant communicative difficulties, coupled with a proper pedagogical method, is essential to restore dignity to these people, encourage their self-determination and participation, and consequently improve the quality of their lifes.
& centerdot; The article reviews the major findings of the studies conducted within a nascent re-search area, that of the intersection between bilingualism and autism. The first part reconstructs the historical reasons for the emergence of this area, basically related to demographic changes, new societal pressures, advances in conceptualization, assessment, and/or diagnostic tools, and increased awareness of the problems at stake. The second part considers three fundamental views that can be drawn from the literature about the impact of bilingualism on individuals with ASD: negative, favorable, and neutral. While the negative view mostly characterizes practitioners-even if not all of them-based on educational assumptions, the favorable and neutral views ground their conclu-sions on empirical studies or systematic reviews of these studies. Despite a series of methodological difficulties due to wide variability in both the bilingual and autistic conditions, variability in the socio-cultural resources of the populations investigated, and also limited access to bi-or multilingual research tools, promising results can be cautiously taken into account in some of the above studies. To date, the position that recurrently emerges from meta-analyses or systematic reviews on language and communication development in bilingual children with ASD is that bilingualism does not impoverish their linguistic and communication skills, and under favorable conditions, can even bring cognitive and communicative benefits similar to those of nonautistic bilingual children. Lastly, the author analyzes a series of gaps in the available studies that future research should address, and proposes extending to bilingualism with ASD the methodology of a promising neuropsychological area that showed significant modifications of the brain due to the bilingual experience in typical development.
