Observation of the communication skills of the children with authism in countries with multiple languages: example Skopje – North Macedonia

This study aimed to determine how monolingual, bilingual and multilingual children with autism in North Macedonia communicate in educational settings, with their families and with their environment, and the problems that arise in this process. The study was designed in a qualitative research model, in accordance with the phenomenology design. The data of the study were obtained from the parents and educators (9 mothers and 8 educators) of 9 individuals with autism aged 3-10 years in North Macedonia. The data were analyzed by content analysis. According to the results of the study, parents and teachers stated that speech disorders are common in children with autism who use more than one language and that they have difficulty speaking when they speak in different languages. Although there is diversity in the communication language preference of these children within the family, children mostly prefer communication in their mother tongue, while at school they mostly adopt dual language use. However, in children who speak more than one language, multilingual use is more preferred, and parents or teachers stated that even if the child starts communicating in a foreign language, they respond in the mother tongue. Another striking finding of the study is that these children differ in their level of speaking in their mother tongue and prefer to use more than one language in sentences. Despite the difference in speaking skills in their mother tongue and their preference for more than one language in a sentence, parents and educators stated that they mostly do not have problems in communicating with these children and suggested that academic support may be beneficial for these students.