Brief Report: Associations Between Autism Characteristics, Written and Spoken Communication Skills, and Social Interaction Skills in Preschool-Age Children on the Autism Spectrum.

Ferguson et al. (2021) asked parents of preschoolers with autism to rate how well their child writes and how well their child talks.

The team then checked if either score lined up with autism traits or social skills.

No teaching happened; this was pure assessment work.

Parents gave higher marks for writing than for talking, yet neither score linked to autism severity.

Social interaction problems also did not track with the communication numbers.

In short, a child could score high or low on writing or speaking and still show the same level of autism features.

Rojahn et al. (2012) found that receptive language, not parent ratings, predicted better daily living skills and fewer behavior problems.

The two studies seem to clash—one says communication matters, the other says it does not—but they measured different things: J used direct receptive tests while F used parent estimates.

Ferguson et al. (2020) matched kids with and without autism and saw no group gap in early code skills like letter names; F (2021) now adds that within autism, written versus spoken scores do not predict severity, building a picture that early literacy is not autism-sensitive once language level is held steady.

Åsberg Johnels et al. (2019) followed children to age eight and showed that weak oral language at three forecasts poor reading or hyperlexia; the null finding in F (2021) hints these long-term reading risks are not visible in parent-rated preschool scores.

Do not assume a chatty preschooler will have milder autism, or that a quiet one is more severe.

Screen emergent literacy in all young clients because relative writing strength may hide later reading risk.

Pair parent reports with direct receptive tests, and plan language and literacy goals for every child regardless of severity.