On the Acquisition of the Arabic Grammatical Gender by Arabic-Speaking Children with ASD
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On the Acquisition of the Arabic Grammatical Gender by Arabic‑Speaking Children with ASD Abdel Rahman Mitib Altakhaineh1 · Aseel Zibin1 · Razan N. Alkhatib2
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract This study examines the ability of Arabic-speaking-children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to acquire the Arabic grammatical gender. It also explores whether the use of visual stimuli can be effective to acquire it. Using the experimental design of a pre- and post-test, 14 children with ASD were tested twice on the same items after a treatment period and their results were compared using a paired sample t-test. The results showed that the use of visual stimuli could be effective in the acquisition of grammatical gender evidenced by the higher accuracy rate on the post-test. The results also demonstrated that the visibility of the feminine suffix marked on the target noun and the participants’ familiarity with these nouns contributed to this rate on the post-test. Furthermore, it was shown that even if the noun belonged to a natural gender class, it had no effect on the participants’ answers unlike the results reported by previous studies on the acquisition of grammatical gender. Keywords Psycholinguistics · Arabic grammatical gender · Autism spectrum disorder · First language acquisition
Introduction It has been observed that one of the main domains that is mostly influenced by Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD henceforth) is communication (American Psychiatric Association (APA henceforth) 2000). Language problems in children with ASD can be described as severe to warrant non-verbalism and can also be characterized by challenges with the functions of communication (Kingsdorf 2014). Furthermore, language problems in
* Abdel Rahman Mitib Altakhaineh [email protected] Aseel Zibin [email protected] Razan N. Alkhatib [email protected] 1
English Language and Literature Department, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan
2
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Al Ain University, Al Ain, UAE
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
children with ASD are usually evident through a number of maladaptive behaviors, e.g. stereotypic responses, aggression or tantrums. In this respect, it has been argued that most of aberrant behaviors often exhibited by children with ASD pertain to the need to enhance or increase their language repertoire (Kingsdorf 2014). In fact, one of the major diagnostic criteria for identifying ASD is the presence of language impairment or delay. In the past, diagnosis of ASD in children was performed in later stages which may have, in fact, hindered the application of some preventative procedures especially in relation to language impairments. However, children with ASD are now being diagnosed at younger ages. The result of such diagnosis have yielded consistent reports indicating that early language skills in these children are heterogeneous and that this diagnosis is regarded as a crucial predictor for later o
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