LANGUAGE DISORDER AND ITS TREATMENTS ON AUTISTIC CHILDREN PORTRAYED IN LINDSEY HILL’S AFTER THOMAS MOVIE (2006).

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LANGUAGE DISORDER AND ITS TREATMENTS ON AUTISTIC

CHILDRENPORTRAYED IN LINDSEY HILL’S AFTER THOMAS

MOVIE (2006)

THESIS

Submitted as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Sarjana Degree of English Department Faculty of Arts and Humanities

State Islamic University of Sunan Ampel Surabaya

By: EVI SUSANTI Reg. Number: A83212159

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

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LANGUAGE DISORDER AND ITS TREATMENTS ON AUTISTIC

CHILDRENPORTRAYED IN LINDSEY HILL’S AFTER THOMAS

MOVIE (2006)

THESIS

Submitted as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Sarjana Degree of English Department Faculty of Arts and Humanities

State Islamic University of Sunan Ampel Surabaya

By: EVI SUSANTI Reg. Number: A83212159

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

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i ABSTRACT

Susanti, Evi. 2016. Language Disorder and Its Treatments on Autistic Children

Portrayed in Lindsey Hill’s After Thomas Movie (2006). Thesis. English Department, Faculty of Letters and Humanities, State Islamic University of Sunan Ampel Surabaya.

Advisor : Murni Fidiyanti, M.A.

Key words : language disorder, treatments, autism, autistic children, After

Thomas

Language disorder is the difficulty to use and understand the language in their daily communication. This disorder is usually experienced by people who suffer autism. The study focuses on the character of Kyle, what language disorders experienced are, what treatments given to help him, and how the result of treatments given to him.

The method of this study was descriptive qualitative, because this study described the phenomenon of language disorder and the treatments given in After Thomas movie. The data was taken from the script and some scenes of the movie. The writer used some theories from Carroll (1985) and American Psychiatric Association (APA) (1994) and some other theories to finish this study.

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INTISARI

Susanti, Evi. 2016. Language Disorder and Its Treatments on Autistic Children

Portrayed in Lindsey Hill’s After Thomas Movie (2006). Thesis. English Department, Faculty of Letters and Humanities, State Islamic University of Sunan Ampel Surabaya.

Advisor : Murni Fidiyanti, M.A.

Kata kunci : penyimpangan bahasa, cara, autisme, anak autis, After Thomas

Language disorder adalah penyimpangan dalam mengujarkan maupun memahami suatu bahasa. Penelitian in fokus pada karakter Kyle, apa saja penyimpangan bahasa yang dialami, cara apa saja yang diberikan untuk membantunya, dan bagaimana hasil cara tersebut setelah diberikan kepadanya.

Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah kualitatif deskriptif, karena penelitian ini menjelaskan penyimpangan bahasa dan cara penyembuhannya di film After Thomas. Data yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini diambil dari skrip dan adegan film. Penulis menggunakan beberapa teori tentang jenis language disorder dari Carroll (1985) dan American Psychiatric Association (APA) (1994) dan beberapa teori lainnya untuk menyelesaikan penelitian ini.

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CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

5.1 Conclusion ... 62 5.2 Suggestion ... 64

REFERENCES. ... 65

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the background of the study, statement of the

problem, objective of the study, scope and limitation of the study, significance of

the study, and definition of key terms.

1.1Background of the Study

Allah has created human being in this world in best and different from

other creatures. Although human being is created as the best creature of other

creatures, God still gives laxity to them in different way. It proves that God is the

perfect one. No one can be equal his perfection like what God says in the Holy

Qur`an (Ar-Ra`d, 8): Allah knows every female (womb) doth bear, by how much

the wombs fall short (of their time or number) or do exceed. Every single thing is

with him, in (due) proportion. Based on the verse above as explained in Tafsir

Ibnu Katsir, Allah as the lord of the world has the greatest power to set human

life. He knows every human excess and laxity in their life when they are still in

his mother’s womb. He has determined human’s fates whether they are created in

man or woman, how long standing their life are, and how their condition (good or

bad) would be. Here, the writer points that God is the only one who knows and

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Therefore, not all people face their lucky fate in life, because Allah gives

us weakness in every person. For example is what happens to those who have

mental disorder. They get difficulty on social interaction of human. The deficit

refers to the weakness which is categorized as language disorder.

Language disorder refers to language disfluency which causes the damage

of understanding and expression of language. As the result, they have disorder on

language production and comprehension.

Language disorder are disorders which involve the processing linguistic

information. Problem that may be experienced can involve phonology, syntax,

semantics, or pragmatics (Carroll (1985), cited in Rofi, 2011: 13). People with

language disorder may have problems in their daily conversation. Field (2004: 93)

argues the problems of language disorder may be receptive (impaired language

comprehension), expressive (language production), or combination of both. This

case is usually experienced by the children who has a mental disorder, such as

autism.

Autism in children may have impairments in both receptive and

expressive. Because of these impairments, autistic children get failure to make

social communication in their daily life. They also tend to have lack of eye

contact and rarely play game with other people, yet they get difficulty to build

social relationship (Dawson, 1989: 9). That is why they are usually ignored and

neglected, and often misunderstood by the community. People sometimes define

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people sometimes consider that autistic children are similar to idiot children who

are different from normal children.

Actually, the word autism is already common in our ears. American

psychiatrist Leo Kanner firstly introduces about autism that is known as autism

spectrum disorder (ASD). He found eleven children (8 boys and 3 girls) who had

the same characteristics of impairment, for instance they cannot communicate

with others and do not care with their environment, so that they are like live in

their own world. Based on his research, Kanner gives the common characteristics

of autism, those are: the lateness of speech acquisition and the inability to use

communicative speech, echolalia/ repeating the words, pronoun reversal, and

impaired relationship with other people, repetitive and stereotyped play activities,

and normal physical appearance (Kanner, 1943: 249-250).

The same core of deficits on Autistic children is also described by

American Psychiatric Association (1994, cited in Filipek, 1999: 443). They

explain autism as a neurodevelopment disorder which is characterized by the

diagnosed autism criteria by a variety of symptoms that can occur in different

combinations and range from mild to severe. The symptoms are from each of

these categories: the first is impairment in social interaction, the second is

impairment in communication, and the last is repetitive interests and behaviors

such as failure to use facial expression, gestures and lack of eye contact and lack

of ability to initiate a conversation with others. They also may not respond when

someone calls their name or play with other children before age of three. Normal

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indicate language development as early as others, and some never indicate the

language development. So, it needs to detect earlier when they are at this stage,

because children will pass rapid development.

Lenneberg (1967) (cited in Kandel, 842) describes the stage of

development in the acquisition of language. Children at the age of 3, they are able

to use full sentences and make few errors and close to adult speech at the age of 4.

Many investigators have claimed that the child has mastered the essential of

language by the age of 4 or 5 years (e.g., McNeill, 1970; Slobin, 1971, cited in

Foss, 1978: 241). Normally, children are able to speak fluently around five years.

They will be able to say something, understand words, distinguish their meaning

and discover the rules for recombining sounds into words then make it into a

sentence and do a turn taking with the partner in conversation. But, children with

autism may not follow the typical patterns of language phase. Although the

children are at the age of 6, but their language stage might look like at the age of

3. Therefore, it becomes the problem when some children take longer time to pass

those stages, especially when they have reached six years, in which they should

have been able to talk, combine words into a sentence, understand and use the

language in their daily communication.

Although the language of children who suffer autism is delayed, but

phonologically, their articulation is clear enough in spite of making errors in

mentioning something. Although some children with autism speak relatively

fluently which is often accompanied by word meaning errors, but they are unable

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stress in speech. The syntactic ability is also delayed because they often echolalia

(Indah and Abdurrahman, 2008: 127). Besides, young autistic children, even if

verbal, have comprehension deficits (APA (1994), cited in Filipek, 1999: 444).

Autistic children have some problems in acquiring a good speech process and

comprehending the speech for their social interaction. In fact, they need to treat

earlier.

The writer concerned with the phenomena above and wants to apply and

improve the knowledge of linguistic for analyzing the language disorder

especially to explore how language comprehension and production are impaired

and what kinds of treatments are given to help them, because it is important to

overcome their disabilities as early detection of the symptom of autism. Thus, it

becomes one of ways to increase the knowledge of parents to help their autistic

children. Besides, it may build parents love and patience how to face their disable

children in daily life. Autism phenomenon which is already described above is not

only happened in the real fact but also reflected in the movie. Here, the writer uses

After Thomas Movie as the subject of the research to represent the autistic

children phenomenon.

The writer chooses After Thomas movie as the subject of study because of

some reasons; the first, this movie represents autistic phenomenon which story is

taken from true story. It tells about the boy who suffers autism, Kyle, speaks like a

parrot, because he sometimes repeats what his family says and uses it in many

contexts. He seldom speaks and gets the difficulty to understand what people say,

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utterances, he just says in short sentence. He also could not convey his speech

Cleary. Hence, his parents struggle to make their child able to communicate and

interact with others. One day, they finally find some treatments to help their child

in order to be able to communicate with other. They use a dog which they call

Thomas, because the name of Thomas is Kyle`s favorite movie actor. By the

presence of the dog, his family treats him by imitation and always talking to him.

Kyle finally gets improvement in his daily interaction. The second, this movie

also shows language disorder which is used by Kyle as the autistic character. And

the third, After Thomas movie (2006) is one of UK movies where there are many

children suffer autism portrayed there. Besides, this movie won one award in

Shanghai International TV Festival 2007 and one nominated as Best Directing for

a Television Film.

Furthermore, the writer is interested in analyzing language disorder in her

study entitled Language Disorder and Its Treatments on Autistic Children

Portrayed in Lindsey Hill’s After Thomas Movie. In this study, the writer analyzes

language disorder of autistic boy portrayed in After Thomas movie.

1.2 Statement of Problem

Based on the background of study above, this study is conducted to find

out the answer of some problem in relation with discussion above, as follows:

1. What are language disorders experienced by an autistic child in After

Thomas movie?

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3. What is the result of an autistic child’s language after given the best

treatment in After Thomas movie?

1.3 Objective of Study

Based on the statement of the problems above, it brings some purpose of

study which can be formulated as below:

1. To describe how language disorders experienced by an autistic child in

After Thomas movie.

2. To describe some treatments given to an autistic child in After Thomas

movie.

3. To describe the result of an autistic child’s language after given the best

treatment in After Thomas movie.

1.4Significance of Study

Through this study, the writer hopes this study is expected to give both

theoretical and practical contributions. Theoretically, the result of this study can

give contribution to enrich knowledge and understanding to other writers in

psycholinguistics fields, especially language disorder and some treatments to

overcome the disabilities.

Particularly, the writer wants to know more about language disorder

especially in autism and its treatment. Besides, it also can give beneficial

information and additional reference to other writers who want to make further

studies on language disorder, especially that is related to and its treatment on

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Disable School how to help the sufferer develop their daily communication. Not

only that, it can also help the parents whose children suffers autism to care them,

because one of successful factors on disable children’s language ability is

dependent on the environment help especially parental role to motivate and

attention to children.

1.5Scope and Limitation

In order to make this study manageable, it is necessary to scope and limit

the discussion. In this research, the scope of this research is focused on the

psycholinguistics analysis, especially language disorder and its treatment by

autistic children. This study is centered on the types of language disorder and

some treatment given to him which is displayed by one of the main character in

After Thomas movie.

1.6 Definition of Key Terms

The writer attempts to clearly several terms which is used as the topic in

this research, such as:

Language disorder is a language disability to understand what people says by not responding to them, or to produce some utterances and use it to communicate or

both the understanding and spoken especially who suffer autism.

Treatment is some ways given to sufferer to make them able to produce and comprehend some speech so that they still can communicate with others.

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Autistic Children is children who are suffered autism that is difficult to interact and communicate with other people with same interests.

After Thomas Movie is a movie by Lindsey Hill which tells about an autistic

children aged six-year-old namely Kyle who has difficulty in social interaction

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10 CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter explains several important theories related to the research.

They are language disorder, expressive language disorder, receptive language

disorder, mixed receptive-expressive language disorder, treatments, autism,

characteristics of autism, language of autism, child language development, and

previous studies which is relevant to this study.

2.1 Theoretical Bases 2.1.1 Language Disorder

To communicate with other people, of course there is a process of sending

the idea and though verbally through words and sentence or nonverbally through

facial expression or body language. Those processes are going so well if they are

experienced by a normal person. Yet, it will be difficult for those who have deficit

of brain function whether to produce or respond the language. This deficit is

commonly known as language disorder. To get clear understanding what language

disorder is, there are some descriptions from some experts about language

disorder.

Language disorders, known as aphasias, are presumed to have as their

cause some form of damage to some specific site in the hemisphere where

language is located. The damage causes problems in spontaneous speech, as well

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with receptive aphasia cannot understand written or spoken language, but the

child with expressive aphasia can understand, but cannot use meaningful

language. Karlin thought that many children showed a combination of both

(Illingworth, 1971: 231).

Language disorder in children shows large variation. Children speak their

first words between 9-18 months (Goorhuis-Brouwer & Schaerlaekens, 1994). By

the age of 2 most children have at least 50 words of vocabulary and produce 2-3

word combinations (Rescorla, 1989). Language can be delayed, impaired, or a

combination of the two. Delayed or disordered language development implies that

the development of language comprehension and language production run more

slowly as compared to children of the same age.

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the professional

organization for speech-language pathologists, (cited in Owens, 2003, 4) defines

language disorder as the impairment of comprehension and/or use of spoken,

written and/or other symbol systems. Then, ASHA states that the disorder may

involve (1) the form of language, which involve phonology (the sound system of a

language and roles of how the sounds are combined), morphology (structure of

words and how the words forms are constructed), and syntax (the order and

combination of words to form sentences), (2) the content of language (semantics),

and/or (3) the function of language in communication (pragmatics) in any

combination.

Resuming the previous explanation, it can be concluded that language

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the language to communicate because of having some problems including form,

content, and function of language. Language disorder covers two types of basic

problems. Those are receptive language disorder and expressive language

disorder. In few cases, there is also mixed expressive-receptive language disorder

that occurs in our society. Therefore, to get deeper explanation about what types

of language disorder are, it will be explained as follows.

2.1.1.1 Types of Language Disorder

Language disorders are categorized as either receptive or expressive. A

person with receptive language disorder has difficulty understanding language. A

person with expressive language disorder has difficulty using language. Besides,

Field (2003: 93) argues the problems of language disorder may be receptive

(impaired language comprehension), expressive (language production), or

combination of both.

2.1.1.1.2 Expressive language disorder

The first type of language disorder is expressive language disorder. It

refers to the difficulties of using the language which is often a component in

developmental language delay.

According to American Psychiatric Association (1994: 55), expressive

language disorder is characterized by linguistic features include a limited amount

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shortened sentences, grammatical errors, limited varieties of sentence types (e.g.,

imperative, questions), difficulty expressing ideas and slow rate of language

development.

In short, by the previous explanation, it can be concluded that people with

expressive language disorder has difficulty in expressing language to others, since

they are unable to produce like what normal people can do and do not talk much.

2.1.1.1.2 Receptive Language Disorder

The second type of language disorder is receptive language disorder. In the

contrary with expressive language disorder, receptive language disorder affects

the difficulties to understand and comprehend what is being said or read. Students

Support Services (2000: 1) characterizes this disorder as having difficulties

understanding language. The difficulty may be in the word level or sentence level.

The child also has poor listening skills, difficulty following directions, difficulty

understanding word with multiple meaning or figurative language.

Further, Better Health Channel (2015: 1) argues that receptive language

disorder is often associated with development disorder such as autism. There is no

standard set of symptoms that indicates receptive language disorder since it varies

from one child to another. However, the symptom may include; not seeming to

listen when they are spoken to, lack of interest when the story books are read to

them, inability to understand complicated sentence, inability to follow the verbal

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Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that receptive

language disorder refers to the difficulties of understanding and comprehending

the sentences or utterances that someone says or reads to them.

2.1.1.1.3 Mixed Receptive-Expressive Language Disorder

Some people have symptoms of both receptive and expressive language

disorder, well known as mixed Receptive-Expressive Disorder as the last of types.

Looking at the phrase used, it may be analyzed that mixed receptive-expressive

language disorder is a combination of both receptive and expressive which

suffered altogether by a person. This statement is strengthened by APA (1994: 58)

that an individual with Mixed Receptive-Expressive Disorder has the difficulties

associated with expressive language disorder (e.g., limited vocabulary, errors in

tense, and difficult to produce complex sentence) and also in receptive language

development (e.g., difficulty understanding words, sentences, or specific types of

words).

Mixed receptive-expressive language disorder (Tots, 2004, cited in

Purwaningsih, 2011, 14) identifies developmental delays and difficulties in the

ability to understand spoken language and produce speech. A person who has

mixed receptive-expressive language disorder will not only have the inability to

understand and/or use words in context both verbally and nonverbally, but also

have inability to express ideas, inappropriate grammatical pattern, and inability to

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Briefly, mixed receptive-expressive language disorder is a combination of

the difficulties either in understanding the language or producing the language

that is said to them. They may also have problems in both understanding and

speaking words or sentences. This deficit can be overcome to help the autistic

people by some treatments. It can help the sufferer to be able to communicate

with others although the deficit is not totally recovered. The following subtopic

explains more the treatments for autistic sufferer.

2.1.2 Treatments

Every problem must be a way. It becomes the problem when parents have

children who suffer disturbance in their brain that affect language disorder and

difficult in communicating such as autism. According to Medical Dictionary,

treatment can be defined as the management and care of patient and the combating

of a disease or disorder, called also therapy. Some treatments may be not only

done by the therapist but also the family. Many treatments can be given by the

parents to help their children improve their language and social communication,

such as speech-language therapy, verbal behavioral therapy, and animal-assisted

therapy.

Speech and language therapy is defined as therapy services, including

diagnostic evaluation and therapeutic, intervention, that are designed to improve,

develop, correct, rehabilitate, or prevent the worsening of speech/language

communication and swallowing disorders that have been lost, impaired, or

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or injuries. Speech and language disorders are those that affect articulation of

speech, sounds, fluency, voice, swallowing, and those that impair comprehension

or spoken, written, or other symbol system used for communication. (MassHealth,

2005: 1)

Speech and language therapist asses people with communication

difficulties and help people to overcome and/or adapt to arrange of

communication problems. The technique which the speech and language therapist

uses to help someone’s communication difficulties will depend on the particular

problems which they have. For example, if they have difficulty understanding the

meanings of words (receptive), the sufferer may be asked to match words to

pictures and judge whether words have the same meaning. If they have difficulty

finding the words that want to be said, the therapy might include practicing

naming pictures and repeating words your therapist says (Stroke association,

2012: 2-3).

The purpose of speech and language therapist is to increase language and

communication ability especially language production by how children can

express their idea in words. Besides, it also helps the sufferer to recover as much

as their speech as possible and/or find alternative ways of communicating.

A family also can help the autistic child by teaching him verbal and

non-verbal communication using always talking, and manipulation. In this case of

always talking, the family always explains to the sufferer and shows the activity

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therapist might manipulate the speech tools with other tools. In addition, playing

and talking, using pictures, books, and objects can use to stimulate language

development by interacting with them.

Another theory of therapy given to autism sufferer is verbal behavioral

therapy. It teaches communication using the principles of Applied Behavior

Analysis and the theories of behaviorist B.F Skinner. In this case, Verbal

Behavior Therapy focuses on four types one of them is echoic or repeated word. It

is important as the student needs to imitate to learn (autism speaks, 2014: 37).

In doing the therapies above, it can use the approach of Animal-Assisted

Therapy (AAT). This therapy is firstly introduced by Boris Levinson who used

pet as therapeutic work to help patients with autism by using a dog. He stated that

pets give comfort to autistic child and can exert his healing influence on the child

twenty-hours a day, every day of the week (Pavlides, 2008: 23). Then, Pavlides

(2008: 70) also explained that AAT animals include dogs, cats, rabbits, birds,

horses, and dolphin. Animals in AAT provoke attention and engagement,

reinforce task completion, stimulate conversation, and social integration (ibid,

77).

Further, animal is also successful to improve socio-communicative

abilities of children. Animal as communicative partners gives children a sense

(Salamon, 2010:147). Although many different types of animals have been used,

dogs are the most commonly used and discussed in the literature. Therapy dogs

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care-taking practices that lead to improve understanding of personal responsibility

(Turner, 2001: 22).

The explanation above can be concluded that speech and language therapy,

verbal behavior therapy with the approach of Animal-Assisted therapy might give

beneficial treatment to children who have neurodevelopment disorder, such as

autism. Children with autism mostly have difficult to communicate with others.

The following explanation will discuss autism phenomenon clearly.

2.1.3 Autism

This study investigates language disorder of autism. So, it is better to

describe several autism definitions and phenomenon follows from some experts as

follows.

Autism is one of disturbance groups in children. The term autism was

firstly introduced by Leo Kanner in 1943. According to Kanner, autism is the

disorders which are shown by the lateness of speech acquisition and the inability

to use communicative speech, echolalia/ repeating the words, pronoun reversal,

and impaired relationship with other people, repetitive and stereotyped play

activities, and normal physical appearance (Kanner, 1943: 249-250).

Other definition of autism comes from Simmons (2006: 3) that is a

neurologic disorder involving serious impairment of abilities to interact and

communicate socially. Generally, people on the autism spectrum have great

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people usually respond differently to their surroundings. Some autistic children

remain mute throughout their lives. Others may be delayed, developing language

as late as the teenage years. Inability to speak does mean that autistic children are

not intelligent.

2.1.3.1 Characteristics of Autism

There are some criteria for children who suffer autism. They are

difficulties with non-verbal communication, inappropriate facial expression,

unusual use of gestures, and lack of eye contact, strange body postures, lack of

mutual or shared focus of attention, odd pitch intonation, faster or slower rate than

normal, unusual rhythm, monotone, repetitive, and echolalia (Teaching Student,

2000: 36).

The characteristics are strengthened based on DSM-IV. According to

American Psychiatric Association in the book of Diagnostic and Statistical

Manual of Mental Disorder Fourth Edition (1994: 70), there are some

characteristics for autistic disorder. The first is social interaction impairment. It

can be seen if the autistic have difficulty making eye contact with others, show

little gestures or facial expression when interacting, failure to develop peer

relationship, and seem uninterested in sharing enjoyment with other people.

The second is communication impairment. In this case, the autistic have

delay in, or total lack of, the development of spoken language, have difficulty

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language. The last is stereotyped or repetitive behavior, interest, and activities.

The autistic boy may perform repetitive routines and have difficulty with changes

in these routines.

Field (2004, 27) also stated that the condition is characterized by a

withdrawal from linguistic interaction with others. The sufferer is often mute or

uses language in a non-communicative way. The symptoms of autism appear

between the ages of one and three, and are sometimes misdiagnosed as deafness.

They include delayed cognitive and linguistic development and a reduced ability

to react to people, events and objects.

In the conclusion, autism is a kind of disease that occurs in brain damage

and occurs throughout the autistic life. Thus, it may disturb their language ability

in producing and using the language or understanding what someone says. People

with autism always avoid eye contact and do not want to interact with other

people. One of the characteristics of people who suffer autism is difficult to

communicate verbally and nonverbally. The next topic will give clear information

about the language of autism.

2.1.3.2 Language of Autism

Language is the important aspect of human life. They use language to

communicate or express what they feel to others. However, not all people are

perfect. There are some people who have weakness in producing and

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Communication problems are often one of the first indicators of possible

ASD. These may include a failure to begin gesturing, a seeming noninterest in

other people, or lack of verbal responding. Poor social interaction and poor

language and communication skills are extremely characteristics of children with

ASD (Schuler & Prizant, 1987, cited in Owens, 2003: 44).

In the autism case, there is a combination of cognitive and social

deviation. Children with autism may be only mute or they only repeat some words

what they heard. All communication aspects are difficult to be reached, except

phonological aspects. Phonologically, their articulation is clear enough although

they often appear some errors in mentioning the object. Besides, they also suffer

lower syntactic and semantic ability, because they often imitate the phrase or

sentence that they heard or echolalia (Indah and Abdurrahman, 2008: 126-127).

Furthermore, according to O’Neill (cited in Indah, 2011: 94) there are

some categorizes of language of ASD which are echolalia, pronoun, repetition,

and prosody. Firstly, echolalia is parroting the word what they heard, they usually

echoing other’s people phrase or sentences. Secondly, people with ASD usually

have difficulties in using pronoun. The following is repetition. They like create

agreement by using repetition. The last is about Prosody. Their speech is always

flat, monotones, and also they fail to understand what other people speak which

shows by the intonation pattern.

Further, the theory about language of autism is also explained by Carroll

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communication and their language development into four types. They are

phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics as follow.

2.1.3.2.1 Phonological Disorder

Talking about phonology, Boucher (cited in Carrol, 1985) stated that the

autistic children obviously made some kinds of phonology errors such as

substitution, deletion, assimilation, and addition. Then, Frea (cited in Mesibov,

Shea, and Schopler stated that the prosodic characteristics of people with ASD are

flat, expressionless speech, rapid, singsong intonation, errors in stress assignment.

2.1.3.2.2 Syntactic Disorder

The next language development of autism is syntax. Gleason (1998, cited

in Rofi, 2011: 15) argued that the major difficulty faced by the autistic sufferers

related to their capacity in syntax is echolalia . Echolalia has been defined as the

repetition by the child of something heard in the speech of others. In this theory,

echolalia in autism can be divided into two. They are immediate and delayed

echolalia. The autistic sufferers are in immediate echolalia when they repeat some

words what the child has just heard while delayed echolalia happens when they

repeat some words at the past.

Another theory of syntactic disorder comes from (Bartolucci 1980). He

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particularly articles (a, the), auxiliary verbs, past tense, third-person present tense,

and present progressive “ing”.

2.1.3.2.3 Semantic Disorder

Mesibov, Shea, and Schopler (2004: 64) also described semantic skill in

children with autism as the difficulty with words that changes meaning as the

classic observation of Kanner (1943). They also use unusual words and phrases,

and to have difficulty understanding the meaning of what is said to them (Lord &

Paul, 1997).

2.1.3.2.4 Pragmatic Disorder

Wilkinson (1998) stated that nonverbal behaviors which are peculiar in

autism are eye gaze pattern and gesture. Besides, they also get difficulty in

turn-taking and persistent questioning is characteristic. Children with autism are also

difficult to use language in conversation to share information.

Bruner (1981, cited in Mesibov, Shea, and Schoper, 2004: 64) described

three basic pragmatic function of communication: 1) behavioral regulation of

others (for example, requesting something to drink or protesting being touched);

2) social interaction (such as vocalizing to get attention); and 3) joint attention

(such as pointing to something or commenting about it in order to share

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As well as the theory of Carroll (1985) above, APA (2005, 59) also gave

description that the linguistic features of the production impairment in mixed

receptive-expressive language disorder are similar to those that accompany

expressive language disorder. The comprehension deficit is the primary feature

that differentiates this disorder from expressive language disorder. The child may

appear not to hear or to be confused or not paying attention when spoken to. The

child may also follow commands incorrectly, or not at all, and give inappropriate

responses.

2.1.4 Child Language Development

Children who have normal life will pass the development of language and

have ability to speak and understand as others. In other hand, children whose

brain are dysfunction, it may cause them having difficulty in producing or

understanding the language.

Children’s language development has some milestones from the first

babbles and words to the development of vocabulary utterances of complex

sentences. As Brown’s stages of language development (cited in Santrock, 1998:

331), the first stage consist of children at the age of 12-26 months. Their

vocabulary consists mainly of nouns and verbs with a few adjectives and adverbs,

and word order preserved. The second stages consist of children at the age of

27-30 months, they are able to use plurals, past tense, be, definite and no definite

articles, and some propositions. At the age of 31-34 months, they are able to use

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embedding one sentence within another at the age of 35-40 months. At the age of

41-46 months as the fifth stage, they can coordinate of simple sentences and

propositional relations. At the age of 5 years old, children are able to use rare or

complex constructions.

Language continues to obey certain principles, following the rules of

phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Berk (2000: 390)

concludes language development milestones at the age of 6-10 year, children

master pronouncing signaling subtle differences in meaning regarding Phonology,

understand humor and grasp word meaning on the basis of definition regarding

Semantics. Regarding syntax, children are able to use a few grammatical

structures, such as passive voice and infinitive phrase, continue to be refined. In

addition, children around 4 to 7 years, they are able to use complex sentences.

Regarding pragmatics, they have advanced conversational strategies, such as

shading, appear, understand illocutionary intent expands and highly demand

context improves. Besides, they also use language to predict, reason, and

negotiate.

Every child is different each other. In fact, the child language

developments above may be passed by children differently, especially who have

brain dysfunction.

2.2 Previous Studies

The writer found some previous studies on psycholinguistics dealing with

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Ristanti (2011) entitled Active and Passive Sentences Produced By an Indonesian

Autistic Child Aged 5 Years Old. She tried to find out active and passive sentences

produced by an Indonesian autistic child aged 5 years old. Besides, the writer also

proposed to find out what kind of sentence that dominates. The writer concluded

that active sentences dominated the sentence which was produced. She also

explained that the autistic child often omitted the subject and object in the

sentence.

The second is belonged to Zainatul Mazidah (2012) entitled Receptive

Language Disorder of the Main Character of The Boy Who Could Fly movie. She

tried to find out kinds of receptive language disorder of an autistic boy. The writer

was curious to know the types of receptive language disorder. Besides, the writer

also described how the situation that caused the autistic boy experienced receptive

language disorder. The writer of this study concluded that the autistic character

experienced absurd response, odd response, relevant but not very polite response,

and marginal relevant response. These happens when he was in crowded situation,

feeling worried, disturbed, under pressured.

The third is from Syahridar Fiqri Abadillah (2013) entitled Pemerolehan

Bahasa Anak Autisme Di Day Care Psikiatri Anak RSUD Dr. Soetomo Surabaya

Kajian Fonologi. He tried to describe the language phenomenon of autism

sufferer. The writer described the language acquisition of phonology on

consonant sounds. Besides, he also described the ways how language acquired.

The writer of this study concluded that children who suffer autism have very

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especially on V, Z, Sy, Kh letters. But, the ability to speak shows much

improvement when they learn using repetition method.

The fourth, the study comes from Catur Adi Wicaksono (2013) entitled

Pemerolehan Kalimat Pada Anak Autis Slow Learner Di SDN Klampis Ngasem I

No 246 Surabaya Suatu Studi Kasus. In this study, he was curious to find out

language phenomenon on slow learner autistic child aged 13 years old namely

Ivan. He not only focused on sentences but also verb, noun, and numeral. As a

result, the writer concluded that the language of autistic boy was very simple,

because the autistic only said in one word and two words without giving the

subject.

Looking at those previous studies above, they have similarity that focus on

autism phenomenon. But, they also have some differences with this study. For the

first previous study, it only discussed about the kinds of sentences which were

produced by the autistic child and not discussing deeper what language of autistic

child looks like. For the second previous study, it may similar with this study that

talked about language disorder. But, it only discussed the receptive language

phenomenon without presenting how expressive language is also impaired.

For the third previous study, it discussed phonological aspect especially

language acquisition of consonant letter without describing how semantic and

other aspect of language looks like on autistic child. The last previous study talked

about the phenomenon of language in sentence and detected what kind of

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For the first, third, and fourth previous studies, they are quite interesting,

because the data was taken from real human, so that, it shows the real language

phenomenon on people with autism. But, it is more interesting when the data is

taken from the movie; because how the phenomenon of autistics children is

presented allows us to know their language development and disorder around their

family and society.

Seeing those previous studies, this study is more interesting and deeper,

because it tries to describe how language disorder experienced by the sufferer and

shows how their speech and comprehend abilities looks like. Besides, it is more

interesting because the writer also describe some treatment given to the sufferer to

overcome his disabilities.

The writer does not intend to take a new topic of the research, but the

writer continues the previous research in the same focus, but different theory,

methodology and object. The writer tries to find language disorder phenomenon in

mixed expressive-receptive language disorder. In this case, the data is taken from

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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHOD

This chapter presents the method which is used to finish the study

including research design, data and data sources, research instrument, technique of

data collection, and technique of data analysis.

3.1 Research Design

In this study, the writer used descriptive qualitative to analyze the data, in

which to understand the language disorder phenomenon on autism sufferer and its

treatments given to them. The core of qualitative analysis lies in these related

processes of describing phenomena, classifying it, and seeing how our concepts

interconnect (Ian Dey, 1993: 30). He also argued that qualitative is used to

describe the data that deals with meanings of those we are researching. Here, the

meaning is expressed through actions as well as text (or images) and it is not

dealing with the number. Further, Litosseliti (2010: 52) states that qualitative

research is concerned with structures and patterns. It was used because the writer

analyzed Kyle’s utterance as the data in the form of words, phrases, clause or

sentences, not as dealing with numbers.

In this study, that is why the qualitative was applied because this study

includes collecting data in order to find the answers concern the condition of Kyle

who suffers autism through the actions of Kyle and his utterance in the forms of

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due to the aim of descriptive qualitative itself, which is to understand a

phenomenon. In this method, the writer allowed to observe and describe the

phenomenon of autistic child in detail.

The writer also used library research to collect and analyze the data,

because this study was based on the book and other references of scholar. Besides

that, the writer used descriptive method to analyze the data and then described the

finding to answer the research questions.

3.2 Data and Data Source

The data source of this study was a movie entitled After Thomas published

in 2006 which was downloaded from the site www.youtube.com. The writer chose

the movie because the main character of autistic child reflected language disorder

that not all people suffer the deviation of language and their family really

struggles to help him. As a result, the writer was interested in analyzing language

disorder and its treatments as her study.

The writer got the data from the movie and scripts of After Thomas (2006)

movie. The data of this research was the utterance of the character (words, phrase,

and sentences) and non verbal communication by Kyle, which contain language

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3.3 Research Instruments

One thing that is very important to obtain the data of the study is the

instrument. The instrument of the study was the writer herself, pen, book, mobile

phone, laptop as media.

3.4 Technique of Data Collection

The writer used several steps to collect the data which was needed for the

study, such as:

1. The writer watched the movie for many times and paid attention to some

scenes to find the important parts that was related to statement problem.

2. The writer stopped the scene and repeated many times while watching the

movie when she found language disorder characteristics on the main

character.

3. The writer wrote the minutes of scene and the utterance of autistic child

includes word, phrase, and sentence and noted his non-verbal

communication which contained about language disorder and the way

their family treated him.

4. The writer compared the downloaded script with the dialog on the movie.

It needs to re-check whether the dialog both in movie and downloaded

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5. The writer gave sign and numbered to the dialog in the script which shows

language disorder.

6. The writer classified the data dealing with statement problems based on

the types of language disorder and treatments in order to be easy to be

analyzed.

7. The writer redetected the scenes and the utterances to find and collect the

appropriate data which consisted of language disorder and the treatments.

3.5 Technique of Data Analysis

After collecting the data and finding the important parts which were

already classified, the writer did many steps to analyze the data. Firstly, as the

writer already classified the conversation between Kyle and other characters into

types of language disorder and also the treatments given by his family, those data

was presented and discussed by correlating them with the proposed theories. In

addition, the writer also applied and explained the characteristics of the autism

that were shown in the dialog. The detail descriptions of the analysis of language

disorder which was found in the data and what treatments were given to help the

autistic child, were made by explaining them deeply and described the result of

language improvement. Finally, the writer concluded the data analyzed to obtain

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CHAPTER IV

FINDING and DISCUSSION

This chapter consists of finding and discussion. The focus of the study is

to describe language disorder of the autism character of Kyle in the movie, how

he gets the treatments from the teacher and family, and the improvements of

Kyle’s language.

4.1 Finding

4.1.1 Kinds of Language Disorder

This section explains the finding of the data which are analyzed. The

writer describes and identifies the data which consists of mixed

expressive-receptive language disorder of the autistic character in After Thomas Movie.

Expressive language disorder is distinguished by the symptoms of expressive

itself. The characteristic is varies. Language form, meaning, and function may be

impaired in this disorder. On the other hand, receptive language disorder is

characterized by the difficulty in understanding what someone speaks. The

number of the data analyzed is 12 and the data are divided into some cases and

classified according to the theory.

4.1.1.1 Phonological Disorder

Phonological language disorder is the difficulty in learning and organizing

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disorder which is found in Kyle’s speech. It is occurred when Kyle’s speech has

phonological errors in the case of addition, flat intonation and expressionless

speech. This phenomenon could be seen in data below.

Data 1, (minutes 11:02-11:22)

Rob : Hey there, little fella. Another masterpiece in the making, I see.

Kyle : Car, tree, train, sausage. (Saying in singsong intonation]

Rob : Poetry, too. Multitasking. Sausage, salchica, oh

Kyle : Car, tree, train, sausage. [Saying singsong intonation]

Rob : Very impressive. Okay.

Kyle : Car, tree, train, sausage. [Saying in singsong intonation]

Rob : Right, I think we should see

what Thomas... Oh, shit!

In this scene, it was happened when Kyle was drawing on the table using

paint and drawing using his hands. Some minutes later, the father arrived at home.

Then, Kyle’s father greeted and wanted to see his drawing. Then, Kyle responded

by saying “car, tree, trains” with rhythmical rising and falling repetitively.

As the autistic child, Kyle shows his characteristic of autism by saying

with the repetition in his utterance. Besides, His utterance is also very short and he

says it in falling and rising in pitch of the voice repetitively.

Because of his falling and rising rhythm, it shows that it is included

phonological language disorder. As normal people, the utterance “car, tree, trains”

should be pronounced with falling intonation rather than singsong intonation as he

wants to tell his father. The phenomenon of phonological disorder is also

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Data 2, (minutes 15:01-15:19)

Granny Pat : Okay, Kyle. Stop now and eat.

Kyle :No. [Pronouncing with expressionless speech and wrong

articulation]

Granny Pat : Yes, Kyle. We'll stop on three. Okay?

One, two, three!

Come on. Come on, darling.

The above scene was happened when Kyle and his grandmother played the

tree. His grandmother asked Kyle to stop swinging the tree when she said three.

Kyle responded his grandmother’s request by saying “no” in flat intonation and

expressionless speech by adding the sound /w/ and /e/ after the sound /o/.

This disorder is also included as phonology disorder called addition as

Kyle adding the speech sound /w/ and /e/ in producing the word “no”. The sound

[w and e] should not be there. It should pronounce with rounded lips. Besides, as

normal people, the speech “no” should be spoken in rising intonation if he want to

refuse someone’s request than flat intonation. But, Kyle did not show it. He also

says it in expressionless speech. As normal children who do not want to follow

the order, it should be spoken in expressive utterance. Here, Kyle should produce

the speech “no” in lively intonation as he really wants to refuse his grandmother’s

request to stop the tree. The case of phonological disorder in this data shows that

prosody of autism is unusual for normal children. The prosodic characteristics of

people with autism are included flat, expressionless speech, singsong intonation,

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4.1.1.2 Syntactical Language Disorder

Another language disorder generally occurs in a person with autism is

syntactical language disorder. It appears in children with autism when they repeat

the utterances they heard or echolalia. Immediate echolalia commonly appears

such as in the data below.

Data 3 (minutes 18.17-18.33)

Rob : Fuck!

Dickhead!

Sorry. Is everyone all right?

Granny Jim : I thought I was on my way to the next world there, Robbie.

Granny Pat : Me, too! And me with my grey old undies on as well.

Kyle : Grey old undies.

Granny Pat : Whoops!

This scene shows when Kyle and his family wanted to go church. On their

way, he got a little accident. Because Rob and Nicola had conversation, Rob did

not know that there was a truck and the car. Unfortunately, he still could control

his car. Rob was sorry to his parents in law and they said about their feeling. After

Granny Pet talked to Rob, then Kyle also talked by imitating his grandmother’s

utterance what he has just heard.

Echolalia is one of the characteristic in children with autism. Kyle as the

sufferer repeats his grandmother’s utterance what he has just heard. As his his

grandmother’s utterance “with my grey old undies on as well”, Kyle repeats parts

of his grandmother’s utterance although it is not in a complete utterance to be

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As the theory, it is included immediate echolalia since he repeated part of the

utterance what he has just heard. The following data also shows how immediate

echolalia was happened on Kyle’s utterance.

Data 4 (minutes 31.58-32.32)

Rob : See, Kyle? You can't go in.

The museum's closed. Look, no one's here. The museum's closed.

All the steam trains are resting. Ready for work tomorrow. Kyle : Work tomorrow.

Rob : Yes, so why don't we go home

and rest just like the trains? Kyle : Like the trains.

rob : Yeah.

This scene tells when Kyle and his father went to steam train as Kyle

wanted. There, the steam was closed and no one was there. His father explained

about that. Then, Kyle responded his father’s utterance by imitating his father’s

words.

As the scene, it shows that autistic children might get difficulty to form his

sentence; hence he repeats his father’s last utterance. The apparent utterance is

“Ready for work tomorrow” to be “work tomorrow”. These words include

syntactical language disorder produced by autistic character. In addition, this kind

of repetition is called an immediate echolalia since he repeats the utterance parts

of his father utterance what he has just heard. This is also happened in the second

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trains?” to be “Like the trains”. Another case of syntactic language disorder is

also happened in the use of auxiliary as the data below.

Data 5 (minutes 5.30-5.47)

Kyle : Rain off, rain off, rain off, rain off.

In this scene, Kyle and his mom arrived at home from the store and it was

raining on their way. After his mother opened the door, Kyle directly run and say

“rain off” repetitively.

As autistic child, Kyle’s utterance is very short and ungrammatical. His

utterance “rain off” proves that Kyle could not make a good sentence. In sentence

pattern, there must be Subject + Verb in verbal sentence and there must be Subject

+ Auxiliary + Object in nominal sentence. The utterance of Kyle “Rain off” shows

that Kyle forgets to use auxiliary “is”. This problem brings Kyle that he still has

problem with the syntactic skill compared with normal children. As child at the

age of 6, he should be able to master a simple sentence.

4.1.1.3 Semantic Language Disorder

Talking about semantic language disorder in autism, (Lord & Paul, 1997)

describes that children with autism have difficulty understanding the meaning of

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Data 6 (minutes 56:31-56:33)

Woman : Hello.

Kyle : This is my dog. His name is Thomas.

He's just a puppy, but he'll grow up to be a big dog.

Woman : He's beautiful, isn't he? And what's your name?

Kyle : [smelling the woman’s body]

The scene above shows Kyle could not have ability to understand the

meaning of what is said to them. It happened in front of the shop when the women

came close to him. She asked Kyle’s name, but Kyle did not understand what she

said to him instead of smelling her body.

Kyle, who suffers autism, might have difficulty with the meaning of

utterance that he hears; hence he does not understand what someone says to him.

When he is asked about his name, Kyle should understand and able to respond her

because the question “what’s your name” is already common for people who is at

the age of 6. As normal children, he should respond her by telling his name when

someone asks him. But, Kyle still does not understand the meaning of the

sentence, so that he just smells the woman’s body. This problem brings Kyle to

have difficulty in semantic skills.

4.1.1.4 Pragmatic Language Disorder

Pragmatic language disorder is the last language disorder which is

indicated by regulation behavior to other, inability using language in conversation

to share information, the use of gesture and turn-taking. The first case is described

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Data 7, (minutes 01:49-02:27) Kyle : No!

Nicola : Sorry. Come on.

Worker: Are you the lady who telephoned?

Nicola : Yeah. I thought you said it would be quiet now.

Worker: Hello, young man. Shall we go inside and try on some new shoes? Nicola : Come on. New shoes and then a lollipop, all right?

Just two minutes. Kyle : No!

Worker: Come on, let's get it done. Nicola : Sorry. Kyle! Kyle!

Kyle : No!

Worker: Karen, could you help, please? Nicola : Come on, come on.

The scene above shows how Kyle could not use his language to protest

and comment that he does not want to go shoe shops. His mother invited him to

go shoe shop to buy new shoes for him. Kyle actually did not want to go inside

and bought the shoes, but he could not tell his mother. He only said “no” without

giving any reason and comment.

As autistic child, Kyle has limit vocabularies. He also could not express

his feeling toward the words. In fact, when he refuses to go to shop, Kyle only

says “no” without giving any comment. As normal children at the age of 6, he

should be able to use language to reason and negotiate, but Kyle does not follow

this. He just says “no” many times. At least, he says No mom, I do not want to go.

This problem is included pragmatic language disorder in the case of inability to

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Data 8, (minutes 31:06-31:51) Kyle : Train.

Rob : Yes, train. You see?

Yeah, you saw new trains today, didn't you, Kyle? Kyle : Steam. Steam train.

In the scene, Kyle was arrived at home and he only shouted “train, steam

train”. Kyle actually wanted to tell his father that he wanted to go steam train, but

his father did not understand what he meant. That is why he responded “Yes,

train. You see? Yeah, you saw new trains today, didn't you, Kyle?”.

As the autistic child, Kyle’s utterances show that he still gets difficulty to

mean his speech. Although he actually wants to invite his father to see the train

but his utterance does not show a request statement. From his utterance, it proves

that Kyle’s language development passes the language phase slowly than normal

people.

As the theory, his utterance is included pragmatic language disorder,

because Kyle faces his difficulty to tell what he actually means. Kyle only says

“train” when he actually wants to see the train. In fact, his father does not

understand the intention of his utterance by responding “Yes, train. You see?

Yeah, you saw new trains today, didn't you, Kyle?” This problem is called

pragmatic language disorder since he has difficulty using language to share

information with others. Another case of pragmatic language disorder could be

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Data 9, (minutes 22:19-22:39)

Teacher : May I see your photo, Kyle?

Kyle : [silent]

Teacher : Oh, it's your tree photo.

You're going to the park with Granny Pat after school, aren't you?

Kyle : [silent]

Teacher : Let's play with the others, Kyle.

The data above shows how Kyle has difficulty in the case of turn taking. It

was happened when Kyle was in the disable school. The teacher tried to build

conversation with him and asked “May I see your photo, Kyle?”, but Kyle was

only silent and looking at the picture on his hand. He did not respond her even

turn his head to her.

As autistic child, Kyle does not have the ability to take his turn by

responding to the question. In fact, Kyle is only silent. As normal children, when

someone asks them especially his teacher, he should respond to the question to get

longer conversational episodes. This problem is included pragmatic language

disorder since he gets the difficulty in the case of turn-taking. Another case of

pragmatic disorder can be seen in the data below.

Data 10, (minutes 01:04:23-01:04:50)

Teacher : And Mummy says that he grew out of his puppy collar.

And he doesn't mind wearing a new one?

So, Thomas doesn't mind wearing something new, does he?

Kyle : He likes it. [Shaking his head to the right and left side]

Teacher : Mummy says you need a new pair of wellie boots to go walking

with Thomas. Shall we see if we can find some that fit you that you like? And that Thomas likes, too?

The scene above happens when Kyle and his teacher were in front of the

LANGUAGE DISORDER AND ITS TREATMENTS ON AUTISTIC CHILDREN PORTRAYED IN LINDSEY HILL’S AFTER THOMAS MOVIE (2006).