Early reading skills in Chinese children with autism spectrum disorder

Research has shown that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) tend to exhibit enhanced perceptual functioning (EPF) and pay close attention to detail and some children with ASD have precocious word reading skills. The present study examined the cognitive and linguistic profiles of Chinese children with ASD, comparing those who showed an early advantage in reading skills before receiving formal literacy instruction with those who showed no such advantage. Seventy-one (N = 71) Chinese young children with ASD (M-age = 54.36 months, 54 boys) were assessed on character recognition, rapid automatized naming, nonverbal intelligence, receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness, and early knowledge of Chinese characters. Parents reported their children's ASD severity and attention to detail by completing the Autism Spectrum Quotient: Children's Version (Auyeung et al., Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 38:1230-1240, 2008). We found that children who showed an advantage in character recognition had higher scores in nonverbal intelligence and orthographic mapping and had greater attention to detail than their peers with ASD who exhibited no character recognition advantage. An advantage in character recognition was correlated with nonverbal intelligence, rapid automatized naming, and attention to detail. Nonverbal intelligence and attention to detail marginally explained unique variance in character recognition. Our findings support the EPF hypothesis in Chinese, suggesting that the ability to recognize Chinese characters involves complex cognitive and linguistic processes.