Advantage in Character Recognition Among Chinese Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This study examined Chinese character recognition and its cognitive and linguistic correlates in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Forty-seven children with ASD and 51 IQ-matched typically developing (TD) children were tested on Chinese character recognition, rapid automatized naming, inhibitory control, digit span, IQ, vocabulary, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and listening comprehension. Chinese children with ASD showed strong character recognition skills. Unlike TD children’s character recognition, which was correlated with all the measured cognitive and linguistic skills, character recognition of children with ASD was only significantly correlated with rapid automatized naming, inhibitory control, and phonological awareness. Our findings suggest that phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming may serve as important predictors for possible advantage in emergent literacy acquisition in Chinese children with ASD.