Early academic skills in Chinese children with autism spectrum disorders

This study was carried out to assess the writing, reading, and math skills of a group of Chinese preschoolers with High Functioning Autism (HFA) and Low Functioning Autism (LFA), matched by age to a group of children who were typically developing and children with intellectually disabilities. Subjects were all native Chinese speakers. Findings indicated that both the HFA and the LFA groups performed similarly to their controls groups on three academic domains: writing, reading, and math skills. In addition, the LFA group demonstrated similar developmental patterns as the HFA group on reading and math skills, but was approximately one year behind on writing skills. An Academic Developmental Profile was provided based on the performances of the HFA and LFA groups.