Brief Report: Vocabulary and Grammatical Skills of Bilingual Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders at School Age.

The team tested 30 bilingual and 30 monolingual children with autism. All kids were 6-12 years old and had no intellectual disability. They used standard tests for receptive vocabulary and grammar.

Each child took the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and a morphology task. The researchers compared the two groups' scores.

Bilingual kids scored in the average range for monolingual peers on receptive vocabulary. They were only a little behind on grammar. The gap was small and not clinically meaningful.

This shows that speaking two languages does not hurt language growth in verbal children with autism.

Reichard et al. (2019) found that autistic children overall score 2.3 points lower on receptive vocabulary. That seems to clash with Maria et al.'s positive finding. The difference is that Maria excluded children with intellectual disability. When you remove the lowest scorers, the bilingual group looks fine.

Skrimpa et al. (2022) backs this up. They tested younger bilingual autistic kids on pronouns and also found no harm. The two studies together show the same pattern across ages.

Floyd et al. (2021) adds detail. They found that autistic children struggle with words that have many related meanings. This tells us to drill each meaning separately, even if vocabulary scores look okay.

You can reassure families that speaking two languages at home will not slow language growth. Keep using both languages. Just watch for gaps in grammar and teach each word meaning clearly.