Characteristics of Fictional Stories in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence from the Farsi

Abstract

Background: Narrative ability is a critical component of social communication essential for participating in everyday activities. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate problems in the narrative discourse, but little is known about the features of their fictional stories. Objectives: This study compared fictional narratives between ASD children and they’re typically developing (TD) peers. Methods: Fictional stories produced by 6-to-7-year-old males with high functioning autism (n = 14) were compared with language, sex, and age-matched TD children (n = 15). The stories were analyzed using the monitoring indicators of scholarly language. The macrostructure and microstructure elements, narrative complexity index, story knowledge index, and perspective-taking index were compared between the two groups by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) at the significance level of 0.05. Results: The scores of macrostructure and microstructure elements were lower in children with ASD. The ANOVA showed significant differences between ASD and TD children in three indices (P < 0.05). Moreover, the Pearson correlation coefficients between the total macrostructure and microstructure scores were close to one in both ASD (r = 0.89) and TD children (r = 0.93). Conclusions: Despite obtaining scores in the average range in a standard language test, Farsi-speaking children with ASD experience limitations in fictional narratives.