Does autism affect writing in English as a foreign language? A comparison between students with autism and their neurotypical peers

Abstract

This study examines whether there is any difference in writing skills between stu- dents with autism and neurotypical students when writing in English as a foreign language. Thereafter it examines if the results correspond with previous research, which has shown dif- ferences between the same two groups when writing in their first language. The age range of the students is 13 to 16 years. The linguistic areas that have been examined are spelling, gram- mar, sentence construction and content. The study is based on theories about writing, contras- tive analysis, error analysis and foreign language acquisition and it has a mixed method per- spective: It is a case study with both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. The results sug- gest that there are differences between the two groups, but not entirely in a way that could have been expected, considering previous research about differences between the same two groups when writing in their first language. In their first language, autistic students performed worse in some areas where they, according to this study, performed on the same level or better than their neurotypical peers in the foreign language.