Gary Diamond
Alyn Hospital, IsraelPresentation Title:
Characteristic linguistic styles in young Arabic speaking children diagnosed with ASD
Abstract
Background: Speech and language patterns are often aberrant in individuals Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Objective: Identifying specific speech markers of ASD in young Arabic speaking children, would enable parents, caregivers, and early educational staff to have suspected speakers referred at an earlier age for complete evaluation and diagnosis.
Methods: Evaluations of all Arabic speaking children age 3-8 years with significant speech delays or impairments during a 5-year period were reviewed. Identifying the presence of characteristic maladaptive speech pathologies was made according to age-related norms. The cohort consisted of 58 children, 37 (64%) of whom were eventually diagnosed with ASD and 21 (36%) with remaining different language impairments. The mean age at diagnosis was 52 months, 78% were male and 22% female.
Results: Use of an inordinate degree of words and expressions in Classical Arabic, commonly used in the media, children's literature and formalized venues, as well as in English was highly associated with ASD, especially among those who were both with a higher IQ score (IQ> 70), as well as older (greater than 4 years), (Pearson= 7.29, Fisher 2-tailed test, p=0.015). Impairments in the pragmatic part of language were observed in the use of "out of context" speech embedded in ordinary Arabic vernacular and was associated with a higher degree of speech stereotypy (p<0.001) among ASD children, and unrelated statistically to the number of hours of screen viewing time, jargoning or associative speech. Language impaired children without ASD had more language retrieval problems than ASD children, perhaps indicating selection bias among the non-ASD children in our control group.
Conclusions: Although use of Classical Arabic is not the exclusive province of ASD, it appears to be highly suggestive a social communication disorder exists and should be investigated. In societies where child development services are not readily available, use of accessible measures should be utilized to prioritize referrals. Language choice in ASD children suggest specific neuro-processing styles and communication pathology.
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