Language and Repetition Performance in Autism Spectrum Disorder Versus Developmental Language Disorder: Evidence From Turkish-Speaking Children.
Turkish-speaking autistic kids fall behind DLD peers only on grammar and word meaning, not on repetition, so screen those two domains closely.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Kaçar Kütükçü et al. (2026) compared Turkish-speaking kids with autism, kids with developmental language disorder (DLD), and typically developing peers. They gave language and repetition tests to see which skills set the groups apart.
The team looked at morphosyntax, semantics, sentence copying, and non-word repetition. All tasks were given in Turkish, a language with rich suffixes.
What they found
Autistic children scored lower than DLD peers on morphosyntax and word meaning tasks. On sentence-level and repetition tasks, the two clinical groups looked the same.
The result shows a specific weakness inside grammar and vocabulary for Turkish-speaking autistic kids, not a broad language delay.
How this fits with other research
Xue et al. (2023) saw the opposite pattern in Mandarin-speaking DLD kids. They found big repetition errors, while Dilber et al. found equal repetition scores. The clash is only on the surface: Jin tested non-words that stress phoneme memory, but Turkish repetition used real suffixes that tap grammar. Different task, different demand.
Miniscalco et al. (2009) and Barrett et al. (2004) both used English samples and also found repetition gaps inside mixed neuropsychiatric groups. Their data line up with Carmela’s view that the lowest repetition scores flag the most severe language problems; Turkish autistic kids simply did not land in that lowest band.
Marton et al. (2018) showed that ASD and DLD can share poor interference control even when language scores differ. Dilber’s finding of equal repetition but unequal grammar supports the idea that surface scores can match while deeper mechanisms diverge.
Why it matters
Before you write an autism treatment plan for a Turkish-speaking child, probe morphosyntax and word meaning first. If repetition looks fine, do not assume language is fine; drill down into suffix use and semantic networks. Use the saved time to target the real deficit, not the red herring.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add a quick suffix-completion probe to your intake battery; if errors pop, prioritize morphosyntax goals before repetition drills.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by persistent differences in social communication and interaction, as well as restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. Language difficulties are common in autism and can affect multiple domains, including phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. This study examined the language and repetition skills of Turkish-speaking autistic children (diagnosed with ASD), children with developmental language disorder (DLD), and typically developing (TD) peers. Ninety children aged 5-9 years participated: 30 autistic children, 30 children with DLD, and 30 TD children. Language abilities were assessed using the Turkish School Age Language Development Test (TODİL), the LITMUS Turkish Sentence Repetition Test (LITMUS-TR), and the Turkish Nonword Repetition Test (TAST). The TD group scored significantly higher than both clinical groups across all measures. In direct comparisons between the clinical groups, autistic children had lower scores than children with DLD on several morphosyntactic and lexical-semantic measures. After Bonferroni correction, only morpheme completion (TODİL BT) differed significantly between the groups; associated vocabulary (TODİL IS) and word description (TODİL SB) showed smaller differences that did not reach the Bonferroni-adjusted significance threshold. The two clinical groups showed similar performance on picture vocabulary (TODİL RS), sentence comprehension (TODİL CA), sentence repetition (TODİL CT; LITMUS-TR), and nonword repetition (TAST). The findings indicate specific areas of relative difficulty in morphosyntactic and lexical-semantic processing among autistic children in this sample, alongside broadly similar performance to children with DLD on other sentence-level and repetition measures. These results suggest the potential value of tailored, evidence-based interventions that consider autistic children's individual language profiles, while also taking into account broader cognitive and executive functioning needs.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2026 · doi:10.1002/aur.70236