Summary Ajit Narayanan describes his work surrounding children with autism. With regard to language, the main issue that children on the spectrum experience is difficulty with abstraction and symbolism. After all, language is an arbitrary representation of reality. Therefore, pictures rather than words have been shown to aid these children with comprehension. In particular, Narayanan (2014) developed a program called Avaz, which essentially converts sequenced pictures into spoken sentences. However, Avaz does not account for grammar. Consequently, Avaz is limited because it does not help autistic children learn word patterns; it is limited to teaching them words. Narayanan (2014) proposed the solution of arranging words in a map rather than
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Narayanan (2014) appears to posit this hypothesis, in which an assumption must therefore be made that neurotypical children will be equally as receptive. He makes the daring claim that this program could result in a second language being attained with the same proficiency as the mother tongue. Indeed, much of the reason that the FreeSpeech program came into existence was due to the fact that children with autism process visual information sufficiently enough to make use of it. It can therefore be argued that such a program is unlikely to benefit neurotypical children to a similar degree unless those processes are operating at similar levels. Edgin & Pennington (2005) discuss the possibility that children with autism actually possess spatial strengths. In the case of Narayanan (2014), spatial strengths in autism could be accounting for the large degree of success in programs such as Avaz and FreeSpeech, which respectively rely on sequenced diagrams and word maps for learning. Fortunately, Edgin & Pennington (2005) found that spatial performance for autistic individuals was neither superior nor inferior in relation to the neurotypical control group. Their findings provide evidence that increases the likelihood of neurotypical children being impacted in the
Narayanan (2014) appears to posit this hypothesis, in which an assumption must therefore be made that neurotypical children will be equally as receptive. He makes the daring claim that this program could result in a second language being attained with the same proficiency as the mother tongue. Indeed, much of the reason that the FreeSpeech program came into existence was due to the fact that children with autism process visual information sufficiently enough to make use of it. It can therefore be argued that such a program is unlikely to benefit neurotypical children to a similar degree unless those processes are operating at similar levels. Edgin & Pennington (2005) discuss the possibility that children with autism actually possess spatial strengths. In the case of Narayanan (2014), spatial strengths in autism could be accounting for the large degree of success in programs such as Avaz and FreeSpeech, which respectively rely on sequenced diagrams and word maps for learning. Fortunately, Edgin & Pennington (2005) found that spatial performance for autistic individuals was neither superior nor inferior in relation to the neurotypical control group. Their findings provide evidence that increases the likelihood of neurotypical children being impacted in the