Phonological Awareness and Word Recognition in Reading by Children With Autism

Abstract

This research examined phonological awareness (PA) and single word reading in 14 school-age children with autism and 10 age-matched, typically developing (TD) children between 5-7 years. Two measures of PA, an elision task (ELI) and a sound blending task (BLW), were given along with two measures of single word reading, word identification for real words (WID) and phonetic decoding of nonwords (WATTK). Group differences were found for performance on PA tasks but no group differences were found for WID or WATTK. All the children with autism scored within the average range on WID and WATTK, although a statistical bias was noted for WID. No relationship was found between PA and measures of word reading in children with autism. Children with autism have adequate ability in single word reading but below average PA. Word reading does not appear to be related to PA for some of the children with autism ), systematic data concerning the development of phonological awareness and its relationship to word recognition in children with autism are lacking. The existing literature on reading ability in children with autism contains two viewpoints that suggest that the children may develop and understand the phonemic structure of words, despite having significant language and communication deficits frequently associated with autism. The first is that many children with autism show an unusual preoccupation with letters and print, frequently developing precocious reading ability for age despite a lack of formal training, a characteristic referred to as hyperlexia (Aaron, Frantz, & Manges, 1990;Nation, 1999). Children with hyperlexia have superior word recognition ability, including phonetic decoding skill, in advance of reading comprehension and cognitive ability. The precocious word reading and phonetic decoding ability suggests that children who are hyperlexic use some underlying knowledge of lettersound correspondence in order to quickly recognize or sound out words. However, not all children with autism show this unusual, early preoccupation with print and word recognition and are not considered to be hyperlexic

Variability in Language and Reading in High-Functioning Autism

“…Although word reading accuracy for sight words and for phonetic decoding of nonwords appears average for age in the HFA children, several studies have noted that phonetic decoding of nonwords is weaker, or less developed, than single word reading (Nation et al, 2006;Smith Gabig, 2010), although one study (Minshew et al, 1994) reported the reverse finding, that nonword reading had an advantage over real word reading. From a neuropsychological perspective, word reading accuracy is considered a basic/mechanical, procedural skill ( Minshew et al, 1994; while text comprehension is considered as complex information processing.…”

“…Research is beginning to emerge in the literature that shows word reading ability is quite variable within the ASD population (Nation, Clarke, Wright, & Williams, 2006;Smith Gabig, 2010). There is a common belief in educational settings and clinical practice that children and adolescents with ASD have advanced word reading, referred to as hyperlexia, yet have significant difficulty in reading comprehension.…”

“…There is a common belief in educational settings and clinical practice that children and adolescents with ASD have advanced word reading, referred to as hyperlexia, yet have significant difficulty in reading comprehension. However, recent research challenges this notion of advance word reading skill in ASD (Nation et al, 2006;Smith Gabig, 2010). A recent investigation by Nation, et al (2006) focused on patterns of component reading skills (e.g.…”

“…Although phonological awareness plays a central role in development and accuracy of word reading ability little direct evidence exists on the emergence of phonological awareness ability and its relationship to word reach development and accuracy in children with ASD. Children with HFA have also been shown to score below age-matched, typically developing children on tasks of phonological awareness ( Smith Gabig , 2010). Fourteen children with high-functioning autism were given two measures of phonological awareness, a sound blending task and an elision task, which required the child to segment words into smaller parts.…”

Prosodic awareness is related to reading ability in children with autism spectrum disorders

“…In another recent study, Smith‐Gabig () investigated the reading accuracy and phonological awareness skills of 14 children with ASD and 10 typically developing peers. Results revealed that children with ASD scored below average on measures of phonological awareness in comparison with typically developing peers: a total of 43% scored below average on both elision (i.e., omitting the initial or final phoneme of a word) and sound blending (i.e., combining individual syllables or phonemes to produce a word), and 26% scored below average on the elision task but within the average range for sound blending.…”