Asperger's syndrome (AS) and highfunctioning autism (HFA) are characterized by social interactions and social communication deficits and atypical patterns of interests, but their cognitive and linguistic abilities remain preserved. Cognitive and linguistic abilities are considered as literacy development prerequisites. Furthermore, phonological awareness, letter namig and vocabulary knowledge are often emphasized as main predictors for reading success. Numerous researchers report about relatively preserved phonological processing and letter naming skills in children with AS and HFA, which indicates their good potential for achieving academic success. Despite these facts, these prereading skills in this population are insufficiently investigated. Therefore, the aim of this research was to describe the characteristics of phonological prereading skills and visual perceptual and graphomotor skills in children with AS and HFA. Also, the aim of this research was to compare prereading skills in children with AS and HFA and their typically developing peers. The sample consisted of 10 children with AS and HFA and 10 typically developing children aged 5-7 years. Children's phonological prereading skills were assessed on phonological and phonemic awareness tasks, letter naming, recognizing and writing names and identifying logos tasks. Visual perceptual and graphomotor skills were assessed by visual recognition and tracing tasks. In accordance with the expectation and other researches, children with AS and HFA showed average phonological prereading skills, as well as typically developing children. It has also been found that the course of development of these skills is the same as in typically developing children, but children with AS and HFA show some individual differences in developing particular skills. Contrary to expectation and other researches results, there was no significant correlation between receptive vocabulary and phonological awareness skills. Surprisingly, children with AS and HFA showed good visual perceptual skills, contrary to other research results. However, statistically significant differences between groups were found on complex tracing task, what confirmed the expectation and other researches that report about poorer graphomotor skills in children with AS and HFA. In conclusion, children with AS and HFA show average phonological prereading skills, which indicates positive opportunities for achieving academic and professional success.