Gesture Production and Its Semantic Integration with Speech in a Heterogeneous Group of Cantonese-Speaking Children with Autism

The present study examined heterogeneity in gesture production and its semantic integration among autistic children. Although previous studies have examined gesture–speech combinations in autism, less is known about whether there are individual variations in how autistic children gestured in relation to speech. Cantonese-speaking autistic children (N = 97; 79 boys, 18 girls, Mage = 5 years, 2 months) were invited to participate in a 15-min parent–child interaction task. Autism characteristics were measured using the ADOS-2 comparison score, intellectual ability was indexed by overall IQ, and receptive language ability was measured using age-equivalent scores from the Mullen Scales of Early Learning. Hierarchical cluster analyses were conducted separately for reinforcing gestures, disambiguating gestures, supplementary gestures, and gestures without speech, together with selected child-based variables. Distinct clusters were identified for each type of gesture. Specifically, profiles with higher disambiguating gesture production tended to include children with fewer autism characteristics and stronger receptive language ability. Profiles with higher supplementary gesture production tended to include children with fewer autism characteristics. Other types of gestures did not show consistent profile patterns with child-based variables. These findings highlight the heterogeneous nature of multimodal communication in autism. In particular, examining the individual variations in how gestures reinforce, clarify, or add semantic information to speech may document a more fine-grained gesture–speech profile among autistic children.