Pattern of phonological awareness skills in children with autism sectrum disorders

Abstract

Introduction: The phonological awareness is individual's knowledge of language constructive units or sensitivity to language sounds and it’s an important predictor of reading skill in children with autism spectrum. In this way, previous studies have shown that children with autism have problems with learning phonological awareness skills. The purpose of this study was to determine the pattern of phonological awareness skills in children of autism spectrum and comparison with normal children. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, 10 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and 10 normal children were matched in terms of age and gender. The phonological awareness skills of the subjects were evaluated using the Auditory Test of ASHA-5 Phonological Awareness Skills and the results were recorded in the checklist. Results: In this research, the mean and standard deviation of the individual’s response were compared with each other, separated by gender. There was a significant difference between syllable, rhyming and phonological awareness in the two groups (p <0.0001). Only a significant difference was not found in the mean scores of sub-tests for word-to-syllable analysis (p = 0.25) and syllable-word combination (p = 0.34), and there was a significant difference between the two groups. In the case group, the decomposition of the word into the syllable and the identification of the final phoneme were respectively the highest and lowest mean scores. Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, children with autism spectrum had lower level of phonological awareness than normal children. Also, the results showed that, as in normal children, in all subtests of the phonological awareness skills were not the same in the study group and did not develop to the same extent. © 2018, Semnan University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.