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.
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Notes
Note that the name of the organization from which the data was collected has been changed and is now known as Zayed Higher Organization for People of Determination.
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Ethical Considerations
Ethical clearance for the experiment reported in this study has been approved. Approval has been sought and granted by the English Department Research Committee at Al Ain University on 17th Oct 2019 with reference number (2/2019/2020).
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We declare that we have no conflict of interest.
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The consent form we received to conduct this experiment was obtained from Dr Mahmoud Abdel Hafiz Alshathily (Advisor) at Zayed Higher Organization for Humanitarian Care and Special Needs (Now known as Zayed Higher Organization for People of Determination). Dr Alshathily’s contact details are: E-mail: mahmoud.alshathly@zho.ae, mobile phone number: +971509379686.
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Altakhaineh, A.R.M., Zibin, A. & Alkhatib, R.N. On the Acquisition of the Arabic Grammatical Gender by Arabic-Speaking Children with ASD. J Psycholinguist Res 49, 1027–1045 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-020-09732-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-020-09732-5