The use of formal language as a strong sign of verbal autistic children in diglossic communities: The case of Arabic.
Konstantinos Francis, Nasser Alshammari, Nailah Alsulaihim and 6 others
PMID 39300919WHAT IT FOUND
In Kuwaiti kindergartens, children who used formal Arabic outside lessons were often classified as autistic, and greater use of formal Arabic went with higher autism severity.
This is a possible language marker, not a tested diagnostic tool.
Key findings
01Teacher-reported formal Arabic use was rare, at 0.46% of fluent Arabic-speaking preschoolers screened in two Kuwait governorates.
02Among eight children whose formal Arabic use was corroborated, seven were classified as having ASD.
03The amount of formal Arabic used was related to autism severity and social-communication difficulties, but not to verbal IQ.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only nine of the 20 children reported by teachers as MSA users had parental consent, and only eight were corroborated as MSA users, so the main result rests on a very small number. The control group was selected by teachers as children with no developmental difficulties and was not formally assessed for ASD, so some controls may have been misclassified. Teacher report alone was not sufficient, because one autistic child was excluded when the computerised language test did not confirm MSA use. The study did not control non-verbal IQ, which the authors identify as a limitation. The authors say future work is needed in other diglossic environments, with children who are not highly verbal, and longitudinally before this can be used for language intervention.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not use spontaneous formal Arabic use as a stand-alone autism test. The finding rests on eight assessed children, controls were not formally assessed for autism, and the authors say more research is needed before this sign is used clinically.