From John Osmundsen:

Re: Uniqueness in human brain’s language zone (March 24): Any research on brain and language development is of great to me since I have an autistic daughter, who only speaks a small handful of words but comprehends most all language spoken to her. A characteristic trait of autism is the inability to articulate because of some, as yet unkown, impairment to the language area of the brain.

Oddly, some children develop normal language skills as a toddler, but as autism takes over the ability to articulate language diminishes to nil. My daughter, who is also profoundly retarded, communicates her needs using sign language, maybe a little over a hundred signs.

I encourage your staff to present more on the relationship of autism and the brain’s language capabilities.

The last sentence of the article: “The study is pub­lished on­line in the re­search jour­nal Na­ture Neu­ro­sci­ence.” Was it somehow impossible to post the direct link to the study? I’ll try to find it.

John Osmundsen
Little Rock, Arkansas