A Study of Relationship between Autists’ Conversational Abilities and GARS-3 Ratings

Abstract

Autism is one of those very complex prevailing neurodevelopmental disorders which are very difficult to diagnose. Since the discovery of this disorder, researchers, working in the field of Autism, have been proposing different methodologies to diagnose Autism. These proposals have been coming from the multiple fields. The present study is an attempt to see how insights from the field of conversation analysis can help find a simpler and better method of diagnosing autism. The study contends that Autists’’ ability to construct conversational loops reciprocates to their ratings on the GARS-3 Scale. Firstly, Conversations between eight autistic children and their speech therapists are recorded, transcribed and analyzed by following norms of conversation analysis. Then these results are compared with participants’ ratings on GARS-3 scale. Findings of the study validate researcher’s claim that there do exist a lucid link between conversational abilities of the autists and their scores on the GARS-3 Scale. Through these findings the researcher proposes conversation analysis as a methodology for diagnosing autism.