Metaphorical priming in a lexical decision task in high functioning autism (original) (raw)
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Explaining metaphors in high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder children: A brief report
Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2012
Figurative speech comprehension is a source of difficulty for high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) children, especially with regard to metaphors. Experimental research in this area has not provided conclusive results. The first experimental studies were conducted in the early 1990s within the theoretical and methodological framework of theory of mind , in which the metaphor was viewed as an advanced test for mentalisation capabilities. Studying autistic individuals of an age range between 9 and 28 years old, Happé found a correlation between metaphor comprehension and the solution to first-order false belief tasks (Baron-Cohen, , which was interpreted as evidence that understanding metaphorical utterances requires the capability to infer a speaker's communicative intentions and, more generally, to attribute mental states to the speaker. More recent studies have highlighted and discussed the role of factors associated with theory of mind . The explanatory power of this construct has been disputed by other researchers, such as Norbury , who redesigned the experimental task devised by and found that the ability to succeed on false belief tasks in 8-15-year-old autistic children did not guarantee, by itself, that they also understood metaphors. Metaphor comprehension draws upon specific lexical notions and extralinguistic knowledge, which are both stored in semantic memory. The metaphor is not the only problematic figure of speech for ASD individuals. studied comprehension of sarcasm and metaphor in children of an age range between 7-and 14 years old (Total IQ and Verbal IQ > 70) and found that their understanding of sarcasm was even more deficient than their understanding of metaphor.
Rethinking Figurative Language in Autism: What Evidence Can We Use for Interventions?
Frontiers in Communication
Problems with the processing and understanding of figurative language have been systematically observed in individuals on the autism spectrum despite preserved structural language skills. In this qualitative review we discuss theoretical considerations of relevance for figurative language processing in neurotypical individuals and individuals with autism across the life-span. We address the factors which influence figurative language processing and their role in the processing of different types of figurative language, with a focus on idioms and metaphors. We address critically the evidence from research, including findings in our own research and recent systematic reviews and the extent to which they offer a reliable picture of potential deficits in figurative language processing in autism and their possible sources. This evidence is discussed from the point of view of insights it offers for interventions targeting non-literal language skills in children and adults with autism.
Metaphor Comprehension in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Core Language Skills Matter
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2021
Poor metaphor comprehension was considered a hallmark of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but recent research has questioned the extent and the sources of these difficulties. In this cross-sectional study, we compared metaphor comprehension in individuals with ASD (N = 29) and individuals with typical development (TD; N = 31), and investigated the relationship between core language and metaphor comprehension. Individuals with ASD showed more difficulty but also a more variable performance in both metaphor and literal items of the task used than individuals with TD did. This indicates that core language ability accounts for metaphor comprehension and should be considered in future research and interventions aiming to improve metaphor comprehension in individuals with ASD.
Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder Comprehend Lexicalized and Novel Primary Conceptual Metaphors
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2014
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulty comprehending metaphors. However, no study to date has examined whether or not they understand conceptual metaphors (i.e. mappings between conceptual structures), which could be the building blocks of metaphoric thinking and understanding. We investigated whether 13 participants with ASD (age 7;03 to 22;03) and 13 age-matched typically developing (TD) controls could comprehend lexicalized conceptual metaphors (e.g., Susan is a warm person) and novel ones (e.g., Susan is a toasty person). Individuals with ASD performed at greater than chance levels on both metaphor types, although their performance was lower than TD participants. We discuss the theoretical relevance of these findings and educational implications.
Brain Sciences
In this study we explored metaphor and idiom competencies in two clinical populations, children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with Klinefelter syndrome (KS), (age range: 9–12), compared to typically developing (TD) children of the same age. These three groups were tested with two multiple-choice tests assessing idiom comprehension through iconic and verbal alternatives and a metaphor comprehension test composed of novel, physical-psychological metaphors, requesting verbal explanations. To these instruments, another test was added, assessing basic sentence comprehension. Performances on the different linguistic tasks were examined by means of discriminant analysis which showed that idiom comprehension had a very small weight in distinguishing children with ASD from TD controls, whereas metaphor explanation did distinguish them. This study suggests that figurative language comprehension is not a “core deficit” per se in individuals with ASD. Only when the task req...
The atypical development of metaphor and metonymy comprehension in children with autism
Autism, 2010
One of the most noticeable problems in autism involves the social use of language such as metaphor and metonymy, both of which are very common in daily language use. The present study is the first to investigate the development of metaphor and metonymy comprehension in autism. Eleven children with autism were compared to 17 typically developing children in a metaphor-metonymy
PLOS ONE, 2016
Individuals with High functioning autism (HFA) are distinguished by relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive skills. However, problems with pragmatic language skills have been consistently reported across the autistic spectrum, even when structural language is intact. Our main goal was to investigate how highly verbal individuals with autism process figurative language and whether manipulation of the stimuli presentation modality had an impact on the processing. We were interested in the extent to which visual context, e.g., an image corresponding either to the literal meaning or the figurative meaning of the expression may facilitate responses to such expressions. Participants with HFA and their typically developing peers (matched on intelligence and language level) completed a cross-modal sentencepicture matching task for figurative expressions and their target figurative meaning represented in images. We expected that the individuals with autism would have difficulties in appreciating the non-literal nature of idioms and metaphors, despite intact structural language skills. Analyses of accuracy and reaction times showed clearly that the participants with autism performed at a lower level than their typically developing peers. Moreover, the modality in which the stimuli were presented was an important variable in task performance for the more transparent expressions. The individuals with autism displayed higher error rates and greater reaction latencies in the auditory modality compared to the visual stimulus presentation modality, implying more difficulty. Performance differed depending on type of expression. Participants had more difficulty understanding the culturally-based expressions, but not expressions grounded in human experience (biological idioms). This research highlights the importance of stimulus presentation modality and that this can lead to differences in figurative language comprehension between typically and atypically developing PLOS ONE |
Metaphor processing in autism: A systematic review and meta- analysis
Developmental Review, 2020
Impairments related to figurative language understanding have been considered to be one of the diagnostic and defining features of autism. Metaphor comprehension and production in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as compared to typically developing (TD) individuals have been investigated for around thirty years, generally showing an overall advantage for TD groups. We present a preregistered systematic review and meta-analysis including a total of 15 studies that fulfilled our set of inclusion criteria (notably, ASD and TD groups matched in chronological age and verbal-or full-scale IQ). Along with accuracy, we also analyzed group differences in reaction time in the studies that reported them. The results revealed a medium-to-large group difference favoring TD over ASD groups based on accuracy measures, as well as a similar overall advantage for TD groups based on reaction times. There was reliable heterogeneity in effect sizes for group differences in accuracy, which was mostly explained by the effect of verbal intelligence, with differences in metaphor processing being smaller for participants with better verbal skills. Some of the variation in effect sizes may also be attributed to differences in types of metaphor processing tasks. We also evaluated the quality of the studies included in the meta-analysis, and the evidence relating to the potential presence of publication bias.
Comprehension and generation of metaphors by children with autism spectrum disorder
Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2016
Background: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are often associated with reduced figurative language processing. However, recent findings suggest that individuals with ASD are not necessarily impaired in comprehension and generation of novel metaphors relative to typically developing (TD) individuals. The current study expands previous research (Kasirer & Mashal, 2014) findings by examining the comprehension and the generation of metaphors in children with ASD. Method: The sample included 34 children with ASD and 39 TD agematched peers (aged 9-16). A multiple-choice questionnaire consisting of conventional and novel metaphors was used to assess metaphoric comprehension; a concept explanation task was used to test conventional and novel metaphor generation. Results: The results indicate that the ASD group understood fewer conventional metaphors than their TD peers. However, no group differences were observed in novel metaphor comprehension task. Furthermore, whereas participants with ASD generated less conventional metaphors they generated more creative and novel metaphors. Conclusion: These findings suggest a unique style of thinking with regard to verbal creativity in ASD which occurs already in childhood.