Non-Word Repetition in Arabic-speaking children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A closer look into...

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Developmental Psychology
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Non-Word Repetition (NWR) tasks are crucial for assessing phonological skills and identifying language impairments across languages.
• Previous research indicates varied performance in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) on NWR tasks.
• The study addresses a gap by evaluating phonological skills in Palestinian-Arabic-speaking children with and without ASD.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the phonological skills of Palestinian-Arabic-speaking children with and without ASD using a specifically designed NWR task.
• To investigate the influence of non-word length and phonological complexity on NWR performance in both groups.
• To analyze error patterns to understand the phonological representations in children with ASD.

Main Methods:

• A Palestinian-Arabic NWR task was administered to 142 children aged 5-11 (75 with Typical Language Development (TLD), 67 with ASD).
• Non-words varied in length (1-4 syllables) and complexity (with/without consonant clusters).
• Quantitative analysis examined length and complexity effects; error pattern analysis identified substitution, deletion, addition, and lexicalisation errors.

Main Results:

• A significant portion (72%) of children with ASD demonstrated age-appropriate NWR performance, while 28% were at risk for phonological impairment.
• Non-word length, not complexity, significantly affected NWR accuracy across all participants.
• Consonant substitution emerged as the most common error type in both TLD and ASD groups.

Conclusions:

• Findings extend cross-linguistic evidence of phonological skill heterogeneity in ASD to Arabic-speaking populations.
• Children with ASD may exhibit a delayed, yet qualitatively similar, pattern of phonological development.
• Comprehensive language assessments are vital for children with ASD to identify potential phonological deficits.