Symposium - Shifts in understanding language across the autism spectrum and throughout development
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The CRBLM is pleased to present an upcoming symposium on language and autism, featuring talks by Emily Zane (James Madison University), Alexia Ostrolenk (Autism Alliance of Canada/Universit茅 de Montr茅al), and Aparna Nadig (91涩漫).
The event will also include a poster session on innovative methods for exploring language and communication across populations (听still open until May 19th!) and break-out discussion sessions.
When: Tuesday, June 16 , 2026, 9:30am-3:00pm
Where: CRBLM offices (2001 91涩漫 College Avenue, 6th floor)
Lunch and refreshments will be served.听
La pr茅sentation se fera en anglais mais il sera possible de participer en fran莽ais via interpretation informelle des questions.听
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Register .
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Schedule:
9:30-10:00 Coffee reception and welcome
10:00-10:15听Emily Zane听鈥斕�Conceptual framework for the day听(important setup to contextualize the three talks)
10:20-11:00 (30 min talk, 10 min Q+A) Alexia Ostrolenk 鈥斕�Atypical routes to language acquisition in autistic children
11:00-11:10 Break听
11:10-11:50 Aparna听Nadig 鈥斕�Learning language from social input in autism and expressive language strengths in multilingual adolescents
11:50 -1:30 Lunch and networking & Poster session听鈥�听Innovative methods for exploring language and communication across populations听(contributions from the CRBLM community)
1:30-2:10 Emily Zane听鈥斕�Do fluent autistic speakers share a 鈥淟inguatype?鈥�
2:10-2:20 Break
2:20-3:00听Break-out discussion sessions: Responding to needs raised by shifts in understanding autistic language at different communication levels
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Speakers:
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Alexia Ostrolenk听(she/her) is a postdoctoral fellow at the Autism Alliance of Canada, in partnership with Unity Health Toronto. In September 2026, she will join the Department of Psychiatry and Addictology at Universit茅 de Montr茅al as an Assistant Professor. Her research focuses on reading and language development in autistic children, with an emphasis on bridging scientific inquiry and real-world practice. An engaged science communicator, she is also the co-founder of ComSciCon-QC, which has provided free science communication training to over 300 francophone graduate students in Quebec since 2020.
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Atypical routes to language acquisition in autistic children:听How do autistic children come to language? This presentation explores alternative developmental pathways to communication in autism. While language development is often understood as fundamentally social, some autistic children appear to access language through different routes. Drawing on research on early interest in written language and unexpected bilingualism, I examine how some children may enter language through pathways that differ from typical developmental trajectories. These alternative pathways challenge conventional assumptions about how language should develop and call for a shift in intervention practices. Rather than treating these trajectories as deviations to be corrected, they can be understood as meaningful entry points into communication. This perspective highlights the importance of building on children鈥檚 existing strengths and interests as a foundation for intervention. It also has practical implications for supporting families, helping them recognize, interpret, and engage with their child鈥檚 unique ways of communicating.
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Emily Zane听is an associate professor of Communication Sciences听and听Disorders at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She is a linguist, whose research focuses on听language听expression, understanding,听and听processing by older autistic children听and听adults.听
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Do fluent autistic speakers share a 鈥淟inguatype?鈥�:听In traditional accounts of听autism, various identifiable features of autistic听language听鈥� e.g., echolalia 鈥� are interpreted as linguistic errors attributable to an underlying听language听impairment. Even autistic people who speak fluently have sometimes been described as exhibiting a 鈥渉idden鈥� or 鈥渟ubclinical鈥� deficit, because their spontaneous听language听contains relatively frequent unconventional semantic听and听morphosyntactic features. After quickly reviewing these accounts, I then explore an alternative account, grounded in linguistics, where these semantic听and听morphosyntactic features are considered as identifiable patterns associated with an autistic 鈥渓inguatype鈥� (Zane & Grossman, 2024; Zane & Luyster, 2025) 鈥� that is, a valid linguistic code shared across autistic speakers 鈥� somewhat akin to a dialect. To demonstrate how this reinterpretation drastically changes implications of difference in autistic听language听use, I specifically apply the framework to one听language听pattern that has been associated with听autism听since the earliest accounts of the condition: The relatively frequent creation of invented words (neologisms). I will show how reconsidering autistic neologisms as meaningful lexemes, rather than听language听mistakes, can yield insights into autistic听language听and听thought.听
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Aparna Nadig is an Associate Professor at 91涩漫 in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Her lab studies language development, social communication and social cognition through an intersectional lens, focusing on people on the autism spectrum as well as neurotypicals, and on bilinguals/minority language speakers. In partnership with autistic collaborators, practitioners, and community organizations, her applied lines of work strive to improve social inclusion for people on the autism spectrum and their families.
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Learning language from social input in autism and expressive language strengths in multilingual adolescents
Children on the autism spectrum have highly varied spoken language profiles, with approximately 40% exhibiting skills in the normal range or above. In this talk I will focus on this subgroup of the autism spectrum who have age-expected spoken language skills. Since many other children on the autism spectrum face significant communication challenges, and reduced early social attention is a defining feature of autism, learning from the spoken language input in the child鈥檚 social environment may not necessarily be expected. In the first part of the talk I will review work from my and others鈥� labs on the nature of the language input available to toddlers and preschoolers on the autism spectrum, relative to that of typically-developing children. I will also present evidence indicating that children on the spectrum who have participated in research studies, when examined as a group, do in fact make use of the language they hear, and benefit from lexically rich and syntactically complex input, as do typically developing children.
Learning multiple languages may, on the surface, seem like an even more unlikely possibility in autism, given the aforementioned social and communication challenges. This has lead to a commonly held belief that bilingualism could further delay language development in children on the spectrum; yet a body of research demonstrates that there is no such additional delay. In the second part of the talk, I will review evidence from my and other鈥檚 labs showing that this subgroup of children on the spectrum can become proficiently bilingual when adequate language exposure is provided. I will also share recent data from multilingual adolescents showcasing their sophisticated expressive language skills and sharing their self-declared linguistic identity and proficiencies.
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