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In conversation, the listener plays an active role in conversation success, specifically by providing "listener feedback" which signals comprehension and interest. Previous work has shown that frequency of feedback positively correlates with conversation success. Because individuals with ASD are known to struggle with various conversational skills, e.g., turn-taking and commenting, this study examines their use of listener feedback by comparing the frequency of feedback produced by 20 adolescents with ASD and 23 neurotypical (NT) adolescents. We coded verbal and nonverbal listener feedback during the time when participants were listening in a semi-structured interview with a research assistant. Results show that ASD participants produced significantly fewer instances of listener feedback than NT adolescents, which likely contributes to difficulties with social interactions.

Background & Aims: Discourse markers, such as "well" or "like," serve a variety of functions to support conversational reciprocity: filling pauses, aiding word-finding, and modulating turn-taking by holding the conversational floor. Previous research shows that autistic individuals use discourse markers less frequently than non-autistic (NonAu) peers; however, the discourse marker "like" has not been included in that research, despite its ubiquitous use by NonAu individuals, and despite the fact that "like" serves important pragmatic functions that are not encoded by any other discourse marker. Specifically, "like" signals to the listener that the content of upcoming speech is (1) Important/new; (2) Loose/approximate; (3) Reformulative; or (4) Quotative. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by comparing the frequency of discourse marker "like" use between older autistic and non-autistic children as well as exploring patterns of usage between the four "like" functions. Methods: Twenty-one 10-to-17-year-old children on the autism spectrum and 20 NonAu peers--statistically matched on age, sex, IQ and language scores--engaged in a semi-structured interview with a researcher. Uses of discourse-marker "like" were identified from written transcripts of interviews and each use was categorized into one of the four functions. Results: There were no significant differences in "like" frequencies between groups, nor were there differences in relative proportions of functions used by each group. Conclusions: Research consistently indicates that autistic individuals use discourse markers significantly less often than their NonAu counterparts, but the findings from our study suggest that this pattern does not persist to all such markers. This group of older autistic children use "like" as often as their peers and use it to signify similar information about upcoming speech to their listener.

Background and aims: Autism has long been characterized by a range of spoken language features, including, for instance: the tendency to repeat words and phrases, the use of invented words, and "pedantic" language. These observations have been the source of considerable disagreement in both the theoretical and applied realms. Despite persistent professional interest in these language features, there has been little consensus around terminology, definitions and developmental/clinical interpretation. Main contribution: This review paper updates and expands an existing framework for unconventional language in autism to include a broader range of non-generative (echolalia and self-repetition) and generative (idiosyncratic phrases, neologisms and pedantic language) features often observed in the language of individuals on the autism spectrum. For each aspect of the framework, we review the various definitions and measurement approaches, and we provide a summary of individual and contextual correlates. We also propose some transitional language features that may bridge non-generative and generative domains (e.g., mitigated echolalia and gestalt language). Conclusions: This updated framework offers a unified taxonomy and nomenclature that can facilitate further investigation and interpretation of unconventional language in autism. Implications: There are important implications of this work for our understanding of the complex interplay between autism and language development. Equally important are the clinical ramifications that will guide evidence-based practice in assessment and intervention for individuals on the autism spectrum.

This study investigates the use of structural and discourse contextual cues in the interpretation of third-person pronouns by children and adolescents with autism and their neurotypical peers. Results show that referent-biasing contextual information influences pronominal interpretation and modulates looking patterns in both groups compared to a context-neutral condition. These results go against the predictions of Weak Central Coherence and the notion that pragmatics in general is impaired in ASD, since the ASD group was able to use details in discourse context to influence the pronominal interpretation process. However, although discourse context influenced looking patterns in both groups, the groups nevertheless diverged in the nature of these patterns, suggesting that behavioral differences may emerge in more complicated discourse tasks.

Background and aims: A substantial minority of autistic individuals score within typical ranges on standard language tests, suggesting that autism does not necessarily affect language acquisition. This idea is reflected in current diagnostic criteria for autism, wherein language impairment is no longer included. However, some work has suggested that probing autistic speakers' language carefully may reveal subtle differences between autistic and nonautistic people's language that cannot be captured by standardized language testing. The current study aims to test this idea, by determining whether a group of autistic and nonautistic individuals who score similarly on a standardized test show differences in the number of unconventional and erroneous language features they produce in a spontaneous language sample. Methods: Thirty-eight older children and adolescents (19 autistic; 19 nonautistic), between the ages of 10 and 18, were recruited. Both participant groups scored within normal ranges on standardized language and IQ tests. Participants engaged in a "double interview" with an experimenter, during which they were first asked questions by the experimenter about themselves, and then they switched roles, so that it was the participant's turn to ask the experimenter questions. Participants' language during the interview was transcribed and analyzed for linguistic irregularities, including both semantic anomalies and morphosyntactic errors. Results: Group membership accounted for significant variance in irregularity frequency; autistic participants produced more linguistic irregularities than nonautistic participants. Scores on a standardized language test did not improve model fit. Secondary analyses involving irregularity type (semantic vs. morphosyntactic) showed that group differences were primarily driven by relatively high numbers of semantic unconventionalities produced by the autistic group. While the autistic group made more morphosyntactic errors than the nonautistic group, differences in these numbers were only marginally significant. Conclusions and implications: These findings suggest that a commonly used standardized language test does not adequately predict the number and perhaps type of language irregularities produced by some older autistic children and adolescents during spontaneous discourse. Results also suggest that differences in language use, especially semantic differences, may characterize autistic language, even the language produced by people who score within normal ranges on standardized language tests. It is debatable whether differences reflect underlying language impairments and/or a linguistic style adopted/preferred by autistic speakers. In this paper, we discuss both possibilities and offer suggestions to future research for teasing these possibilities apart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neurotypical adults often form negative first impressions of individuals with autism spectrum disorder and are less interested in engaging with them socially. In contrast, individuals with autism spectrum disorder actively seek out the company of others who share their diagnosis. It is not clear, however, whether individuals with autism spectrum disorder form more positive first impressions of autistic peers when diagnosis is not explicitly shared. We asked adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorder to watch brief video clips of adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorder and answer questions about their impressions of the individuals in the videos. Questions were related to participants' perceptions of the social skills of the individuals in the video, as well as their own willingness to interact with that person. We also measured gaze patterns to the faces, eyes, and mouths of adolescents in the video stimuli. Both participant groups spent less time gazing at videos of autistic adolescents. Regardless of diagnostic group, all participants provided more negative judgments of autistic than neurotypical adolescents in the videos. These data indicate that, without being explicitly informed of a shared diagnosis, adolescents with autism spectrum disorder form negative first impressions of autistic adolescents that are similar to, or lower than, those formed by neurotypical peers.

Research shows that neurotypical individuals struggle to interpret the emotional facial expressions of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The current study uses motion-capture to objectively quantify differences between the movement patterns of emotional facial expressions of individuals with and without ASD. Participants volitionally mimicked emotional expressions while wearing facial markers. Recorded marker movement was grouped by expression valence and intensity. We used Growth Curve Analysis to test whether movement patterns were predictable by expression type and participant group. Results show significant interactions between expression type and group, and little effect of emotion valence on ASD expressions. Together, results support perceptions that expressions of individuals with ASD are different from--and more ambiguous than--those of neurotypical individuals'.

The purpose of this study was to reexamine research that used verbal fluency tasks to reinforce assumed deficits in word knowledge and retrieval in the autistic population. We identified seventeen articles that compared the performance of autistic and non‐autistic people on verbal fluency measures and provided an interpretation of the observed performance. In this narrative review, we summarize many components of these studies, including a comprehensive account of how authors framed their research findings. Overall, results of the studies showed variation both between and within groups in terms of total number of correct words, how many subsequent words fell into subcategories, and how frequently participants switched between subcategories. Despite wide variation in findings across studies, authors consistently interpreted results as revealing or reinforcing autistic deficits. To contrast the deficit narrative, we offer an alternative interpretation of findings by considering how they could provide support for the autistic‐led theory of monotropism. This alternative interpretation accounts for the inconsistencies in findings between studies, since wide individual variation in performance is an expected feature of the monotropic theory. We use our review as an exercise in reframing a body of literature from a neurodiversity‐affirming perspective. We propose this as a case example and model for how autism research and clinical practice can move away from the consistent narrative of autism deficits that has pervaded our field for decades. Accordingly, we offer suggestions for future research and clinical practice. Lay Summary: Lots of resources – time, money, energy – have been spent comparing the number of words autistic and non‐autistic individuals can list from a given category (e.g., animals) in a short amount of time (e.g., 60 s). This task is argued to provide a measure of verbal fluency, the ability to recall language on a given topic quickly and effortlessly. Across research, there is wide variation in how autistic people perform this task, including some research showing that autistic people perform similarly to non‐autistic people. However, despite inconsistencies in findings, the authors of this research universally conclude that autistic individuals are impaired in verbal fluency. This review offers an example of an alternative, neurodiversity‐affirming interpretation of these findings using a theory of attention, called monotropism, originally proposed by an autistic theorist. The authors use this model to advocate for changes in data interpretation by scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to reexamine research that used verbal fluency tasks to reinforce assumed deficits in word knowledge and retrieval in the autistic population. We identified seventeen articles that compared the performance of autistic and non-autistic people on verbal fluency measures and provided an interpretation of the observed performance. In this narrative review, we summarize many components of these studies, including a comprehensive account of how authors framed their research findings. Overall, results of the studies showed variation both between and within groups in terms of total number of correct words, how many subsequent words fell into subcategories, and how frequently participants switched between subcategories. Despite wide variation in findings across studies, authors consistently interpreted results as revealing or reinforcing autistic deficits. To contrast the deficit narrative, we offer an alternative interpretation of findings by considering how they could provide support for the autistic-led theory of monotropism. This alternative interpretation accounts for the inconsistencies in findings between studies, since wide individual variation in performance is an expected feature of the monotropic theory. We use our review as an exercise in reframing a body of literature from a neurodiversity-affirming perspective. We propose this as a case example and model for how autism research and clinical practice can move away from the consistent narrative of autism deficits that has pervaded our field for decades. Accordingly, we offer suggestions for future research and clinical practice., (© 2023 International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC.)