Approximately 30% of school-aged individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are nonverbal (that is, they have little or no spontaneous spoken language). Most reading tests require verbalisation, which may under-estimate reading ability in this group. To determine decoding abilities of nonverbal children with ASD (with an age range of 72 to 229 months), a novel digital form of reading assessment, comparable to the widely used New Salford Reading Test, was created. Three groups were tested: verbal ASD (n = 33); nonverbal ASD (n = 24); and verbal non-ASD with a Statement of special educational needs (n = 24). Reading ages were compared for all three groups using the paper-based version of the test, and a digital format that was not reliant on participants' ability to verbalise. The reading scores of nonverbal students with ASD were much lower than the scores of verbal students with ASD when tested with the paper version of the scale, but this difference was eradicated when the digitised version was employed. These results suggest that the use of the nonverbal digital test may offer a good assessment of the reading abilities of nonverbal children with ASD.

中文翻译：

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使用传统的纸质和新颖的数字测试格式来测量ASD的言语和非言语儿童的单词识别能力

自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的学龄个体中约有30％是非语言的（也就是说，他们很少或没有自发的口头语言）。大多数阅读测试都需要口头表达，这可能会低估这一组的阅读能力。为了确定非语言性ASD儿童（年龄在72到229个月之间）的解码能力，创建了一种新颖的数字形式的阅读评估，可以与广泛使用的New Salford阅读测试相媲美。测试了三组：口头ASD（n = 33）；非语言ASD（n = 24）；口头非ASD且有特殊教育需求声明（n = 24）。使用纸质测试版本和不依赖于参与者口头表达能力的数字格式，比较了三组的阅读年龄。用纸质量表进行测试时，非语言能力障碍者的阅读得分远低于语言能力障碍者的得分，但是当采用数字化版本时，这种差异得以消除。这些结果表明，使用非语言数字测试可以很好地评估非语言性ASD儿童的阅读能力。