The nature of structural language difficulties in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was examined in a comparative study with specific language impairment (SLI) via exploration of the frequently reported ASD weakness in receptive abilities relative to expressive abilities. Twenty French-speaking children with ASD aged 6 to 12 were compared to age-matched children with SLI on production and comprehension of wh-questions. The two groups showed similar effects of the intricacy of the different wh-strategies. In the ASD group (as in the SLI group), these effects were not greater in understanding compared to production; moreover, nonverbal skill (which differed from normal to impaired) was not linked to language performance. Observed ASD-SLI differences are asserted to mostly be due to ASD pragmatic deficits, rather than to a qualitative difference in structural language skills.