"The writing of students with Asperger's syndrome" by Christine Zrimsek

Date of Award

Fall 2013

Project Type

Thesis

Program or Major

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Degree Name

Master of Science

First Advisor

Penelope Webster

Abstract

The writing of 5 adolescent boys with Asperger's syndrome between the ages of 13 - 18 was examined relative to age and gender-matched typically-developing children. The investigator collected writing samples across three genres: narrative, expository, and persuasive. The samples were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively using a variety of measures. Consistent with the investigator's expectations, results indicated that, relative to controls, students with Asperger's syndrome performed significantly poorer on higher-order aspects of writing: coherence, cohesion, and perspective-taking while not significantly different on spelling, a lower-order aspect. An unpredicted finding was that the children with Asperger's syndrome made significantly more grammatical errors than their age-matched controls.

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