Since the earliest age, children primarily engage in conversational exchanges with their mothers, which, through their quality and frequency, consequently influence the child's overall development. Additionally, by using speech as a means of communication, children begin to communicate for various functions and gradually expand their range of communication in interactions with their mothers. However, the question arises as to what happens to the interaction and characteristics of the communication functions of children who exhibit atypical communication patterns, specifically those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the differences in the number of conversational exchanges between mothers and children with autism spectrum disorder and children with typical development, as well as to identify differences in the occurrence of imperative and declarative communication functions between these two groups. 30 children with typical development and 30 children with autism spectrum disorder, along with their mothers, participated in this study. Conversational exchanges were analyzed using transcripts constructed after conducting and recording the Children's Play Protocol, considering every verbal response of the interlocutor within a range of up to 3 seconds as a completed conversational exchange, while non-response or responses outside the 3-second time frame were considered as a break in the exchange. For the part of processing communication functions, each child's statement from the transcripts was analyzed and categorized into either declarative or imperative functions. The results of this study indicate that no statistically significant difference was found in the number of conversational exchanges between children with typical development and their mothers compared to children with ASD and their mothers. Additionally, declarative functions were predominant over imperative ones in both groups of children, except for three participants in the autism spectrum disorder group. However, it is important to emphasize the limitations of this study, such as the inconsistency in the characteristics of the participants, both children and their mothers. Although this study contributes new insights due to the scarcity of literature, both foreign and Croatian, future research focused on this issue should aim to more precisely align the characteristics of the participants and other influencing factors. This would enable clearer conclusions about the interaction between mothers and their children and the communication characteristics thereof, which would consequently improve therapeutic work and the achievement of more successful outcomes.