LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 25:8 August 2025
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Selvi M. Bunce, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
         Nathan Mulder Bunce, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Honorary Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

Celebrate India!
Unity in Diversity!!

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

Poetic Encounter
Available in https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09TT86S4T

Poems
Naked: the honest browsings of two brown women
Available in https://www.amazon.in

Decrees
Available in https://www.amazon.com

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2025
M. S. Thirumalai

Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
11249 Oregon Circle
Bloomington, MN 55438
USA
Custom Search

Pragmatic Profiling in Children with Verbal Autism

Ms. Selexteena Boban
Dr. Satish Kumaraswamy and
Dr. Rohila Shetty

Abstract

Pragmatic language involves the appropriate use of language in social contexts, encompassing skills such as eye contact, turn-taking, gesture use, topic management, joint attention, and conversational repair. This study aimed to assess and compare pragmatic skills in Malayalam-speaking children with verbal autism and typically children. Fifty children aged 5 to 13 years. 30 with verbal autism and 20 typical children were assessed using structured tasks including conversation, picture description, and question-answering. Findings revealed that children with verbal autism exhibited significant deficits across most pragmatic domains, despite adequate vocabulary and grammar. These results align with existing literature and underscore the heterogeneity of pragmatic impairments in autism. The study highlights the need for individualized, context-based interventions that go beyond language structure to enhance functional social communication.

Keywords:Pragmatic language, Verbal autism, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Malayalam-speaking children, social communication

Introduction

Language is the ability to produce and comprehend both spoken and written words. Complex language is one of the defining factors that make us human. The five main component of language are phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Language is a complex system of arbitrary symbols which is used for human communication. (American Speech and Hearing Association, ASHA, 1982).

"Communication- the human connection is the key to personal and career success". The Latin word "communis" means "common" or "shared." It conveys the idea of something that is held in common among people, which aligns with the concept of communication as a means of sharing information, ideas and feelings between individuals. The root emphasizes the collaborative and interconnected nature of human interaction. All living organism communicate in one way or the other. However, it is the humans who have the privilege of using arbitrary symbols. Communication is defined as the process of transmitting information and common understanding from one person to another. The means of communication in humans is language.

Pragmatics is "the study of the relations between language and context that are basic to an account of language understanding" (Levinson, 1983). The term pragmatics has been introduced into the field of speech-language by Bates (1992) a psychologist at the university of California. Bates (1976) defined pragmatics as the rule governing the use of language in context.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Ms. Selexteena Boban
Final Post Graduate Student
Dr. M.V. Shetty College of Speech and Hearing
Malady Court, Kavoor, Mangalore-15
selexteena9562@gmail.com
+91 95623 27833

Dr. Satish Kumaraswamy
Ph.D. in Speech and Hearing
Dr. M.V. Shetty College of Speech and Hearing
Malady Court, Kavoor, Mangalore-15
sat8378@yahoo.com

&
Dr. Rohila Shetty
Professor
Dr. M.V. Shetty College of Speech and Hearing
Malady Court, Kavoor, Mangalore-15
shettyro@gmail.com
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.