English as a Medium of Language Intervention for Bilingual Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders in a Multilingual Context – A Review

Abstract

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) receive language intervention, often in English, a language different from their mother tongue in a multilingual, multiracial, and multicultural country like Singapore, irrespective of the type of service delivery model. In majority of the instances, parents who are non-native English speakers choose to expose their children to English as the primary language which is different from their mother tongue due to various reasons. The reason could be attributed to the availability of services such as early intervention, special school, therapy, etc. being primarily provided in English. This is consequent to the professionals and teachers using English as a common language across the services for better communication and social interaction, for children with ASD. On some occasions, the therapists and /or teachers may not speak the native language of the child e.g. Mandarin, Malay, Tamil and others. This review enumerates the studies revealing the effects of bilingual exposure in language and vocabulary development in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders in various multilingual, multiracial, and multicultural countries.