Comprehension of wh-questions among Jordanian children with autism spectrum disorder and specific language impairment

Abstract

This study investigates the comprehension of wh-questions among Jordanian Arabic-speaking children by comparing both (subject and object) “which” and “who” questions. The sample consisted of 45 Jordanian children: 15 with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 15 with specific developmental language impairment (SDLI) and 15 typically developing (TD) children aged between 6 and 8 years. To achieve the objectives of this study, a binary task consisting of pictures with two-figure selection and pictures with three-figure selection was used. To analyze the data, a one-way repeated measures ANOVA was used to examine the comprehension of wh-questions among the three groups. The findings revealed that the ASD and SDLI groups performed better in subject wh-questions compared to object wh-questions. Moreover, the study also found that “which” questions constituted a problem for both ASD and SDLI Jordanian children. In addition, earlier grammatical competence acquired by children with ASD and SDLI (i.e., word order) guides their later wh-question comprehension. ASD and SDLI children showed impairment in answering subject and object questions. Meanwhile, the TD children showed better performance in who and which questions, although they exhibited difficulty in understanding object questions compared to subject questions. The conclusions indicate that the SDLI group performed better than the ASD group in terms of the number of correct answers and comprehension of wh-questions, while The ASD group performed better in the three-figures tasks over the two-figure tasks, in contrast to the children in the other groups, who performed better in the two-figure tasks.