Search

Numerous studies suggest that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) encounter language problems related to syntax. In particular, these children face difficulties in comprehending and answering complex language structures in Arabic.This paper examines whether a prototype Arabic assistive application can have an impact on the ability of children with ASD to comprehend and answer content questions and on their communicative skills. Via two questionnaires targeting 57 caregivers and ASD specialists in Jordan and a focus-group discussion with three teachers working in three autism centers in Jordan, a prototype assistive application named Aseel was created. To test the effect of using this app on enhancing ASD children's ability to comprehend and answer Arabic questions, a sample consisting of two groups of children: 20 verbal and 5 nonverbal children with ASD enrolled in three autism centers in Amman, Jordan was recruited. A pre-test containing 55 content questions was designed and tested on the two groups. Then, a treatment for three weeks took place in which the teachers trained the children on answering these questions using the app. A post-test was conducted after a three-day break to test whether the app affected the ability of verbal and nonverbal children with ASD to comprehend and answer the questions accurately. The data analysis revealed that the differences between the answers of the two groups in the pre- and post-tests were statistically significant. This suggests that this technology has the potential to aid both verbal and nonverbal children with ASD in effectively learning complex Arabic content questions. This assistive application enhances collaboration between teacher and children with ASD, visual-spatial thinking and communication with others. Another advantage of this app is increasing ASD children's vocabulary repertoire. Preliminary results involving nonverbal children showed that the icons which visually and auditorily represent the most basic needs for a person are proving effective in helping this group communicate with their caregivers and teachers., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

This study provides an analysis of the monomodal and multimodal metaphors and metonymies depicting COVID-19 in a corpus of 250 memes. The theoretical framework adopted in this study included Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Forceville's (2008) Mono-modal and Multimodal Metaphor Theory, and Musolff's (2006) approach in identifying source domains scenarios. Various source domains that depict different aspects of COVID-19 were used, and some of them reflected certain aspects of the Jordanian culture. The analysis also revealed that multimodal metaphors were more frequent compared to monomodal ones. Primarily, the researchers ascribed the salient presence of multimodality to the medium-determined specificities characteristic where pictorial and textual cues are carefully selected to reinforce the message the meme intends to convey. Furthermore, conceptualizing a new pandemic required the pervasive use of multimodality. The analysis also demonstrated the crucial role of metonymy in interpreting certain conceptual metaphors., Competing Interests: The authors acknowledge that there is not conflict of interest., (© 2022 The Authors.)

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.