On the Acquisition of the Arabic Grammatical Gender by Arabic-Speaking Children with ASD

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.