The communicative spontaneity of children with autism who had limited spoken language in their natural environment was investigated. This naturalistic observation is a preliminary study using a continuum model to describe the nature of communicative spontaneity. The results indicate that the level of communicative spontaneity in the natural environment varied (1) along a continuum, (2) across communicative forms, functions, activities, partners and consequences, and (3) across the effectiveness of requesting and rejecting functions. The findings from this study may provide some directions for future study. (Contains 8 figures.)