AN ANALYSIS OF PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN.

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AN ANALYSIS OF PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN

(A Psycholinguistic Study on Sound Production and Phonological Patterns of Students in SLB Autisma YPPA, Bukittinggi)

A Research Paper

Submitted to the Department of English Education in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Sarjana Sastra Degree

By: Aisya Gusnelia

1002791

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

THE FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE EDUCATION INDONESIA UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

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An Analysis of Phonological Features

of Autistic Children

(A Psycholinguistic Study on Sound Production and Phonological

Patterns of Students in

SLB Autisma YPPA

_{, Bukittinggi)}

Oleh Aisya Gusnelia

Sebuah skripsi yang diajukan untuk memenuhi salah satu syarat memperoleh gelar Sarjana pada Fakultas Pendidikan Bahasa dan Sastra

Februari 2015

Hak Cipta dilindungi undang-undang.

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AN ANALYSIS OF PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN

(A Psycholinguistic Study on Sound Production and Phonological Patterns of Students in SLB Autisma YPPA, Bukittinggi )

A Research Paper

By

Aisya Gusnelia

1002791

Approved by:

Main Supervisor Co-Supervisor

Eri Kurniawan, M.A., Ph.D. Ruswan Dallyono, S.Sos., M.Pd.

NIP. 198111232005011002 NIP. 197008032005011002

The Head of English Education Department

The Faculty of Language and Literature Education

Indonesia University of Education

Prof. Dr. Didi Suherdi, M.Ed.

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Aisya Gusnelia, 2014

An Analysis of Phonological Featuresof Autistic Children

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu ABSTRACT

An Analysis of Phonological Features of Autistic Children

(A Psycholinguistic Study on Sound Production and Phonological Patterns of Students in SLB Autisma YPPA, Bukittinggi)

Aisya Gusnelia (1002791)

Main Supervisor: Eri Kurniawan, M.A., Ph.D.

Co-Supervisor: Ruswan Dallyono, S.Sos., M.Pd.

The present study seeks to investigate the phonological features of children with impairments, particularly children with the autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this study, phonological investigation was performed on four autistic children, 9-10 years old, including three boys and one girl. Data were obtained from two different tasks: spontaneous speech and single-word production. Data were analyzed qualitatively supported by descriptive quantification. The findings show that Indonesian autistic children fail to produce three classes of sounds correctly including plosive, nasal, and liquid sounds, particularly plosive /p/ and /k/, nasal /n/ and /ŋ/, and liquid /r/ and /l/. The findings do not in line with the earlier studies

by Fatmasari (2011) and Pangestuti (2011) but support and extend Cleland et al.’s

(2010) study showing that the speech of autistic children was characterized by mainly substitution and reduction processes (liquid deletion and liquid to liquid substitution most frequently). An interesting characteristic also emerged, suggesting that autistic children tend to have word-final coda deletion in their speech sound production. Furthermore, this study also suggests that autistic children produce sounds better in the form of spontaneous speech than single-word production.

Keywords: Psycholinguistics, phonology, phonological patterns, sound production, children, autism.

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu

bahwa bicara anak autis ditandai terutama dengan proses substitusi dan reduksi (liquid deletion dan liquid to liquid substitution muncul paling sering). Satu karakteristik menarik juga muncul bahwa anak autis cenderung melakukan word-final coda deletion dalam produksi ujarannya. Lebih lanjut, studi ini juga menunjukkan bahwa anak autis memproduksi bunyi lebih baik dalam bentuk ujaran spontan dari pada dalam bentuk produksi kata tunggal.

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORIZATION ... i

ABSTRACT ... ii

PREFACE ... iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... v

LIST OF TABLES ... ix

LIST OF FIGURES ... xi

LIST OF APPENDICES ... xii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ... 1

1.1 Background of the Study ... 1

1.2 Research Questions ... 4

1.3 Aims of the Study ... 4

1.4 Significance of the Study ... 5

1.5 Scope of the Study ... 5

1.6 Clarification of Key Terms ... 5

1.7 Organization of the Paper ... 6

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2.1 The Concept of Psycholinguistics ... 7

2.2 Defining Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) ... 8

2.2.1 Autism as a Language Disorder ... 8

2.2.2 Speech in Autism ... 9

2.3 Phonological System ... 11

2.3.1 Phoneme Inventory ... 11

2.3.1.1 Definition of Phoneme ... 12

2.3.1.2 Place & Manner of Articulation ... 12

2.3.2 Charting Consonant Sounds ... 13

2.4 Phonological Analysis ... 15

2.5 Phonological Patterns ... 16

2.5.1 Definition of Phonological Patterns ... 16

2.5.2 Types of Phonological Patterns ... 17

2.5.2.1 Substitution ... 17

2.5.2.2 Assimilation ... 18

2.5.2.3 Syllable Structure (Reduction) ... 18

2.6 Previous Studies ... 21

2.7 Concluding Remarks... 23

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 24

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3.2 Research Design ... 25

3.3 Data Collection ... 25

3.3.1 Research Site and Participants. ... 25

3.3.2 Data Collection Techniques. ... 26

3.3.3 Data Transcription ... 26

3.4 Procedures of Data Analysis ... 28

3.5 Example of Data Analysis ... 29

3.6 Phonetic Symbols & Conventions ... 29

CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS... 31

4.1 Participants’ Sound Production ... 31

4.1.1 The Production of Fricative Sounds. ... 31

4.1.2 The Production of Affricative Sounds. ... 33

4.1.3 The Production of Approximant (glide) sounds. ... 34

4.1.4 Regular Alternation. ... 35

4.1.4.1 Plosive Sounds. ... 36

4.1.4.1.1 The Production of Phoneme /p/ ... 36

4.1.4.1.2 The Production of Phoneme /k/ ... 39

4.1.4.2 Approximant (lateral) sounds. ... 40

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4.1.5.1 Nasal Sounds. ... 43

4.1.5.1.1 The Production of Phoneme /n/ ... 43

4.1.5.1.2 The Production of Phoneme /ŋ/ ... 45

4.1.5.2 Approximant (liquid) Sound. ... 49

4.1.6 Irregular Alternation. ... 51

4.2 Participants’ Phonological Patterns ... 53

4.2.1 Substitution Processes ... 56

4.2.2 Syllable Structure (Consonant Reduction) ... 60

4.2.3 Other Processes ... 62

4.3 The Comparison of Participants’ Sound Production in Spontaneous Speech & in Single-words Production ... 66

BAB V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 70

5.1 Conclusions ... 70

5.2 Suggestions ... 71

REFERENCES ... 73

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Chart of Consonant Sounds (Yule, 1998) 13

Table 2.2 Categorization of Phonological Processes (Substitution)

in Normal Child Speech Development (Bowen, 2009) 19

Table 2.3 Categorization of Phonological Processes (Assimilation)

Table 2.4 Categorization of Phonological Processes (Syllable Structure)

Table 3.1 Example of Phonetic Transcription 28

Table 3.2 Example of Data Analysis 29

Table 4.1 The Production of Fricative Sounds 32

Table 4.2 Word-initial /h/ observed in Participants’ Sound Production 33

Table 4.3 The Production of Affricative Sounds 34

Table 4.4 The Production of Approximant glide sounds-phoneme /w/ & /j/ 35

Table 4.5 The Production of Plosive Sounds-phoneme /p/ 36

Table 4.6 The Production of Plosive Sounds-onset /k/ 39

Table 4.7 The Production of Plosive Sounds-coda /k/ 40

Table 4.8 The Production of Approximant lateral sound-phoneme /l/ 41

Table 4.9 The Production of Approximant lateral sound-onset /l/ 42

Table 4.10 The Production of Nasal Sounds-phoneme /n/ 43

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Table 4.12 The Production of Nasal Sounds-phoneme /ŋ/ 45

Table 4.13 The Production of Nasal Sounds-coda /ŋ/ 46

Table 4.14 Nasal Overlap in Participants’ Sound Production 47

Table 4.15 The Production of Approximant trilled sound-phoneme /r/ 50

Table 4.16 The Irregular Alternation 51

Table 4.17 Participants’ Phonological Patterns 54

Table 4.18 Substitution Processes observed in Participants’ Sound Production 56

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 4.1 Phonological Processes produced by Participants

in Single-words Production 66

Figure 4.2 Phonological Processes produced by Participants

in Spontaneous Speech 66

Figure 4.3 Other Processes produced by Participants

in Spontaneous Speech 67

Figure 4.4 Other Processes produced by Participants

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix I Pronunciation Test (Single-word production)

Appendix II Participants’ error sound production

(in spontaneous speech and Single-word production)

Appendix III Participants’ Phonological Patterns

(in spontaneous speech and Single-word production)

Appendix IV Regular, Special Case, and Irregular Alternations

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1

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter is an introductory section of the present study. It consists of background of the study, research questions, aims of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study, clarification of key terms, and organization of the paper.

1.1.Background of the Study

This is a psycholinguistic study that examines the realization of how young children produce the sounds of their speech. Conventionally, psycholinguistics deals with three primary interests concerning language comprehension (how people perceive and understand spoken and written language), speech production or language processing (how people construct and produce language), and language acquisition (how people acquire and learn language) (Carroll, 2008). In this study, the psycholinguistics main focus is on the speech production which specifically looks into the articulation of sound production and phonological patterns demonstrated by children with language impairment, particularly children with autism.

The reason why language is difficult for autistic children is probably one of the most frequently asked questions of people about autism. This is because

autism has been described as “A developmental disorder that effects many aspects

of how a child sees the world and learns from his or her experiences” (Siegel, 1996, p. 9). Moreover, it is usually not characterized only by impairments in social, but also impairments in communication and language functioning, and restricted range of behaviors and interest.

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2

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2 Aisya Gusnelia, 2014

Disorders (DSM-IV, American Psychiatric Association, 1994) that states that

impairments are the core features of autism in the domain of language and communication. Therefore, this could be important in differentiating between autistic children and others.

Typically, children usually demonstrate phonological patterns in their speech development. These patterns are characterized by systematic relations between child and adult forms of a target phoneme and involve whole classes of sounds or syllable types. Phonological patterns may include deletion of sound (e.g., final consonant deletion), substitution of one sound for another (e.g., fronting), or assimilation of one sound with another (e.g., context-sensitive voicing). For example, the phonological pattern of stopping involves the substitution of the members of stop sounds (e.g., /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/) for members of the fricative or affricative sounds (e.g., /f/, /v/, /s/, /z/).

Phonological patterns are considered to be atypical when they exist for a protracted period of time (e.g., past 4 years of age) (Hassink & Wendt, 2010). In autistic children, it is considered to be much poorer than that of the normal

children. Relating to this situation, it certainly affects their language development including their phonological acquisition as supported by Brereton & Tonge (2004, p. 8) that “Approximately 50% of children with autism will eventually have useful

speech but the pattern of development and usage is strikingly odd”.

From the viewpoint of speech production, Ingram (1986) points out that there are three categories of phonological patterns, namely substitution, assimilation, and syllable structure. Furthermore Bowen (2009) supported

Ingram’s (1986) ideas by listing other phonological patterns that will be found in

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operating in the speech of children with language impairment, particularly children with autism.

Research on the speech development of children with autism has already been done by some researchers, among others are Cleland et al. (2010) and Pangestuti (2011). By using phonological analyses Cleland et al. (2010) demonstrates research about the comparison of phonological errors between children with autism and Asperger syndrome. They claim that the speech of children with autism is generally characterized by developmental phonological patterns, in which gliding is the most frequent pattern type (25% of the errors), followed by cluster reduction (15% of the errors) and final consonant deletion (10% of the errors). Their investigation also revealed that in pronouncing consonant clusters, generally all the participants cannot pronounce them perfectly. Interestingly, two children in their research produced /s/ and /z/ with nasal emission, which is rarely found in children with phonological disorders.

On the other hand, Pangestuti (2011) has investigated phonological skills of six children with autism in Cakra Autism Center, Surabaya. By using the

recorded data of the children’s speech, she found that the ability of children with autism in speaking and naming objects is very limited. Moreover, phonemes with complex articulations, namely phonemes /v/, /z/, and /ʃ/ which are categorized as

fricative sounds could not be produced by them.

Furthermore, one more previous study was conducted by Fatmasari (2011) who has investigated language description in an 11-year-old autistic child. She focuses on phonological competence and pragmatic recontextualization of the

child’s utterances. In the context of phonological competence, she examines

phonemes production of the child. She found that the autistic child can manage to produce all kinds of sounds except plosive /b/ and /d/ sounds. The problems of these sounds are observed in word-final position. Phoneme /b/ is produces as /p/ and phoneme /d/ is produced as /t/.

Motivated by the findings from Cleland et al (2010)’s, Pangestuti (2011)’s,

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description of sound production in the speech of autistic children in SLB Autisma YPPA, Bukittinggi, West Sumatra. Moreover, by focusing on Ingram’s (1986) and

Bowen’s (2009) theories of phonological patterns in children’s speech development, this study also aims to examine the phonological patterns which may occur in the speech of children in this population.

Among the previous studies which investigate the speech of Indonesian autistic children (i.e., Pangestuti (2011) and Fatmasari (2011)), none of them

investigated autistic children’s sound production in the form of single-word production. They only focused to see the autistic children’s speech sound production from conversation or in the form of spontaneous speech. Furthermore, none of them tried to confirm a notion by Tager-Flusberg et al. (2005) saying that

“pronouncing written words is the strength of children with autism.” Therefore,

this present study also aims to examine the comparison of autistic children sound production in two different tasks: spontaneous speech in a conversation phase and single-word production in a pronunciation test.

1.2.Research Questions

There are three questions underlying this study:

1. How do Indonesian autistic children produce sounds, especially fricative sounds?

2. What kind of phonological patterns occur in their sound production?

3. How different is autistic children’s sound production in spontaneous speech compared to the production in single-word production?

1.3.Aims of the Study

This study aims to do the following:

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2. Identify the kind of phonological patterns occurred in their speech sound production.

3. Identify the comparison of sound production of autistic children in two different tasks: spontaneous speech in a conversation phase and single-word production in a pronunciation test.

1.4.Significance of the Study

This study is useful to investigate how Indonesian autistic children produce sounds and what kinds of phonological patterns may occur in their speech sound production. It may give some contributions and enrich the reference in psycholinguistic study, especially related to the sound production of children with autism spectrum disorder. Henceforth, it will also benefit future researchers by providing the facts needed to compare their study during the time they conduct a similar study. Furthermore, it may also benefit the clinical necessity in deciding the generalization of assessment or treatment needs for young children or adolescents with autism.

1.5.Scope of the Study

This present study is limited to identify the production of speech sounds by

autistic children, especially fricative sounds and to describe their phonological patterns that may occur during their speech production. The participants of this study are autistic children in SLB Autisma YPPA, Bukittinggi. They are limited to those whose ages range from 9 to 10 years old.

1.6.Clarification of Key Terms

To avoid misunderstanding, some of important terms are clarified as follows:

1. Psycholinguistics

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu 2. Phonology

Phonology is defined as the sound system of a language, including the rules determining how different phonemes may be arranged in a word (Carroll, 2008).

3. Speech Production

The process of uttering articulated sounds or words, i.e., how human generate meaningful speech (Li, 2009).

4. Phonological Patterns

The patterns which account for errors of substitution, omission, or addition that typically developing children use to simplify speech when attempting to produce words (Nicolosi, 2004).

5. Autism

It is a disorder in development that usually begins before the age of four, characterized usually by the failure to develop social abilities, language, and

other communication skills to the usual level (The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, 2012).

1.7.Organization of the Paper

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the methodology used in this study. As mentioned in Chapter I, this study seeks to investigate the sound production of Indonesian autistic children, especially fricative sounds and to identify the kind of phonological patterns occur in their speech, also whether or not their speech sound production in the form of single-word production is better than in the form of spontaneous speech in conversation. The rest of this chapter presents the predictions, design, data collection, procedures of data analysis, and examples of data analysis.

3.1.Predictions

This study aims to provide valid and reliable data for the phonological features on speech production of Indonesian autistic children. Based on the results from the previous studies, there two predictions which were used in this study:

1. Indonesian autistic children may produce more sounds imperfectly (not only fricative sounds) and may produce more phonological patterns in their speech production. This prediction relies on Ingram’s (1986) idea that problems in

sound production and phonological patterns are universal. Therefore, if they are truly universal, then it would be reasonable to expect to find them operating not only in the speech of normal children but also in the speech of children with impairments, especially children with autism.

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25 3.2.Research Design

This study primarily applied a descriptive qualitative design supported by some quantification in the form of how the data were recorded in percentages. A qualitative research was appropriate to employ because the present study works in natural settings rather than fully controlled. In particular, this study is a case study which involved autistic children whose ages range from 9 to 10 years. This design relies on Denzin & Lincoln’s (2005 in Creswell, 2007, p. 36) notion that, “Qualitative research involves an interpretive, naturalistic approach to the world”. It means that qualitative research, study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. Therefore, this design is in line with the aims of this study which is to investigate the sound production of autistic children in spontaneous speech and in single-word production.

3.3.Data Collection

This part consists of the research site and participants, data collection techniques, and data transcription of the study. Further descriptions can be seen in the following sections.

3.3.1. Research Site and Participants

This study was conducted at one school for special needs children in SLB Autisma YPPA, Bukittinggi. Four children were recruited as participants and they were

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26 The study only involved a small number of participants (four children) which comprised of three boys and one girl. The decision of not choosing more participants is intended to avoid sampling error (Oppong, 2013).

3.3.2. Data Collection Techniques

The collection of data and the observation of the participants were conducted from April 21st to April 29th, 2014. This observation was conducted by paying close attention to the process of how the participants produced sounds in their speech.

In terms of data collection technique, the data were collected through two different tasks, namely Conversation phase and the Pronunciation test. In the conversation phase, the voice of participants’ spontaneous speech was recorded along the session of their class with their teacher in Individual Therapy Class. This technique relies on Tager-Flusberg’s (2000) notion that “in the field of child language, the richest source of data comes from spontaneous speech samples” (p. 315). Each participant spent two hours with their teacher who worked on oral language development through conversation and small games.

In addition, the pronunciation test was administered to obtain more data. All the participants received the same pronunciation test to complete. They were

tested individually and were required to read 188 single words. This test was administered to participants because the data taken from conversation phase were limited and were not cover all target phonemes. The process taken to complete this pronunciation test was also recorded for each participant. Moreover, the time for participants to complete this test was not limited.

3.3.3. Data Transcription

The recordings of conversation phase and pronunciation test were transcribed and used as the primary source. This is in line with Atkinson and Heritage (1984 in Silverman, 1993) who states as follows:

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re-Aisya Gusnelia, 2014

27 examined in the context of new findings. (Atkinson & Heritage, 1984 in Silverman, 1993, p. 119)

Prior to the transcription, the recorded speech was transcribed in the form of orthographic transcription with the assistance of one shadow teacher in the research site. The involvement of the shadow teacher to assist this data transcription was intended to minimize transcribing error. The transcriptions were then compared and any disagreements were resolved through negotiation. If a disagreement could not be resolved, the particular word under discussion was discarded by the writer.

For the purpose of analysis, the phonetic transcription was then made by the writer by following the International Phonetic Alphabet system. In consideration of the fact that children normally have little difficulty with vowels

(Templin, 1957; Locke, 1969 as cited in Piper, 1984), and because the analysis of the data showed that participants had no difficulty with vowels, only the

consonant sounds were focused in this study. An example of transcription is presented below.

Raw Data: Voice Transcription of Conversation (Orthographically)

Teacher : “Lihat ibu nak! Berapa umurmu?” Participant : “Sebuluh tahu.”

Teacher : “Bagus, pandai sekali! Kapan kamu lahir?” Participant : “taga satu febwuayi dua yibu empat.” Teacher : “Oke, pandai! Berapa umurmu?” Participant : “sebuluh tahu”

Teacher : “Dimana rumahmu?” Participant : “Bintu Kabun.” Teacher : “PINTU KABUN!” Participant : “Bintu Kabun.”

The texts in bold indicate the important words which were then transcribed into

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28 Table 3.1 Example of Phonetic Transcription

Word Target

3.4.Procedures of Data Analysis

The data were analyzed by following steps. First, the data were taken from the results of phonetic transcription of conversation phase and pronunciation test. Second, the data were classified based on the classes of sound such as plosives, fricatives, and affricatives to examine how each sound was produced by participants. Third, any alternations of target sounds which were produced by participants were collected. Forth, the phonetic environments were examined by using theory from Crowley (2005) to discover the preferences of those alternations. Fifth, the collected data were identified to discover phonological patterns of participants by using theory from Ingram (1986) and a supported theory by Bowen (2009). Sixth, the data were examined to discover whether participants’ sound production in the form of spontaneous speech in conversation phase is better than in the form of single-word production in pronunciation test. The last was drawing conclusion from the whole analysis of the study.

In order to determine the percentage of phonological patterns observed in participants’ speech production, the writer needed to compute numerical data by using a simple scaling composed by Thorsten (1992 in Salma, 2013, p. 35).

P =

Note:

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29 3.5.Example of Data Analysis

Once the phonetic transcription was complete, the further analysis then was started. Example of the analysis of the data is exemplified in the table below.

Table 3.2 Example of Data Analysis

Syllable

In order to answer the first question, the data were classified based on the types of sound and any alternations of the target sounds were discovered. For additional description, each of the sounds was classified into two categories in relation to the syllable structure of their occurrences in the word: syllable-onset and –coda positions. This decision followed the idea of conducting phonological analysis in children proposed by Ingram & Ingram (2001). They conducted word shape analysis (syllables) to analyze speech of children which can determine how well children do in maintaining a number of syllables in target words. In order to answer the second and the third questions, the phonological patterns of participants were identified based on all the alternations observed earlier.

After the analysis was applied in all data collection, the distribution of data which consisted of the percentages was also shown. Furthermore, the entire

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30 3.6. Phonetic Symbols and Conventions

The study uses common symbols and technical terms. There are seven important symbols that are utilized in this study. They are listed as follows:

1. Square brackets [ ] signifies sounds, such as in the pronunciation of word

‘kacang’ is represented by the phonetic realization [ka.ʧaŋ].

2. Arrow → designates change; placed between input of a rule and its output, as

in [ ŋ → n ], which means phoneme /ŋ/ changes into /n/.

3. Slash mark / designates ‘the environment’ in which change occurs.

4. Underscore ___ marks the location of the target segment within a string of segments.

5. Boundary marker # indicates initial or final position of a segment within a word.

6. Null Sign ø denotes deletion or omission when it follows an arrow.

7. Braces { } indicate that two rules can be collapsed into one rules; read “either/or.”

3.7.Concluding Remarks

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This chapter is the last part of the paper. It presents conclusions and suggestions related to the present research. Some suggestions are offered to future researchers who are interested in analyzing the language features of autistic children in Indonesia or other countries.

5.1 Conclusions

The research investigates the basic speech sound patterns of young children with autism spectrum disorder in Indonesia. It focuses on how autistic children produce basic sounds in their speech. In addition, it examines the phonological patterns which occur in their speech and compares them in two different contexts including spontaneous speech and single-word production.

There are three classes of sounds successfully produced by autistic children in this study. These sounds are fricatives (/f/, /v/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/), affricatives (/ʧ/ and /ʤ/), and approximant (glide) sounds (/w/ and /j/). Each sound has been realized to produce without any problem. However, autistic children have problems in producing other sounds, namely plosive, nasal, and liquid sounds particularly plosives /p/ and /k/, nasal /n/ and /ŋ/, and liquid /r/ and /l/. Moreover,

one prominent characteristic in autism sound production was found, namely “coda deletion”. Autistic children mostly have a preference to avoid and not produce coda consonants in their speech.

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In addition, autistic children show a better performance in producing sounds in the form of spontaneous speech than in a single-word production. Autistic children tend to make more simplification of their speech in the form of single-word production and it is evidenced by the occurrences of more than ten processes observed.

Overall, the present study shows that the basic sound production’s ability of children with autism is not in an agreement with the previous discussions by Pangestuti (2011) and Fatmasari (2011). Moreover, this study also does not confirm a notion by Tager-Flusberg (2005) that pronouncing written words and spelling are the strengths for children with autism. Nevertheless, with respect to phonological patterns, it is consistent with Cleland et al. (2010) who claims liquid sounds are the most affected sounds relating to phonological patterns of autistic children.

5.2 Suggestions

The present study investigates the production of sounds by Indonesian children with autism spectrum disorder. In addition, the study found some phonological

pattern preferences in the production of their speech.

However, this study has not discovered the exact general patterns in the production of sound by autistic children. In other words, it left the questions about

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Meanwhile, there are still more rooms for improvements. The study of language features particularly in children with autism has wide scope which includes several contexts. Therefore, further study may add other contexts, for example, it may focus on gender preference: “how different is male and female autistic children in producing their speech sounds?” Future studies may also focus on how different children with autism compare to other populations, such as dyslexia and Down’s syndrome, in patterns of language acquisition. These kinds of studies could be needed for a more complete understanding of language and communication in autism that will ultimately lead to the development of treatments that can improve the lives of children with autism.

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