Language and Speech in Autism

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

About the autistic author marker

Gernsbacher, M. A., Morson, E. M., & Grace, E. J. (2016). Language and Speech in Autism. Annual Review of Linguistics, 2(1), 413-425. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-030514-124824

Publication date: 14 Jan 2016 Added to AutiHub: 14 Sep 2026 Type: Article Article language: English

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
3
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 3 (33.3%)

Abstract

Autism is a developmental disability characterized by atypical social interaction, interests or body movements, and communication. Our review examines the empirical status of three communication phenomena believed to be unique to autism: pronoun reversal (using the pronoun you when the pronoun I is intended, and vice versa), echolalia (repeating what someone has said), and a reduced or even reversed production-comprehension lag (a reduction or reversal of the well-established finding that speakers produce less sophisticated language than they can comprehend). Each of these three phenomena has been claimed to be unique to autism; therefore, each has been proposed to be diagnostic of autism, and each has been interpreted in autism-centric ways (psychoanalytic interpretations of pronoun reversal, behaviorist interpretations of echolalia, and clinical lore about the production-comprehension lag). However, as our review demonstrates, none of these three phenomena is in fact unique to autism; none can or should serve as diagnostic of autism, and all call into question unwarranted assumptions about autistic persons and their language development and use.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 20 Sep 2026 01:01.

Cited references
84
With a DOI
64
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
19
5 / 84 (6.0%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
6 / 84 (7.1%)
References with detected author names
82 / 84 (97.6%)
Without detected author names
2
Without a structured title
5
Without a stable identifier
19
References with raw author names still to review
1
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
214
From DOI or external metadata
214
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
3
50 / 214 (23.4%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 164 / 214 (76.6%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
5 / 214 (2.3%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 5 / 50 (10.0%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 4 / 182 (2.2%).
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