Cover not available
Part of
Handbook of Pragmatics: 27th Annual Installment
Edited by Mieke Vandenbroucke, Jana Declercq, Frank Brisard and Sigurd D’hondt
[Handbook of Pragmatics 27] 2024
► pp. 1–40

Autism

| Ikerbasque Foundation for Science | University of the Basque Country
| University of the Basque Country
| University of the Basque Country
| University of the Basque Country
| University of the Basque Country
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Cognitive and linguistic skills that influence pragmatics in autism
    • 2.1Precursors of pragmatic development
      • 2.1.1Eye contact
      • 2.1.2Joint attention
      • 2.1.3Pointing gesture
    • 2.2Beyond communicative intentions: On other factors that impact pragmatics
  • 3.Non-literal language
    • 3.1Implicatures and indirect speech
    • 3.2Figurative language
    • 3.3Summary and future lines of research
  • 4.Monologic and dialogic discourse
    • 4.1Narratives
    • 4.2Conversation
    • 4.3Summary and future lines of research
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
References (208)
References
Aksu-Koç, Ayhan, and Ayça Aktan-Erciyes. 2018. “Narrative discourse: Developmental perspectives.” In Handbook of Communication Disorders, ed. by Elad Dattner and Dorit Ravid, 329–356. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Andrés-Roqueta, Clara, and Napoleon Katsos. 2017. “The contribution of grammar, vocabulary and Theory of Mind in pragmatic language competence in children with autistic spectrum disorders.” Frontiers in Psychology 8: 996. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2020. “A distinction between linguistic and social pragmatics helps the precise characterization of pragmatic challenges in children with autism spectrum disorders and developmental language disorder.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 63(5): 1494–1508. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Asperger, Hans. (1944) 1991. “‘Autistic psychopathy’ in childhood.” Translated by Uta Frith. In Autism and Asperger Syndrome, ed. by Uta Frith, 37–92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logo (Originally published in Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankenheiten 117 (1944): 76–136 and Heilpädagogik (1952).)Google Scholar
Attwood, Tony, Uta Frith, and Beate Hermelin. 1988. “The understanding and use of interpersonal gestures by autistic and Down’s syndrome children.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 18(2): 241–257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baixauli, Inmaculada, Concepción Colomer, Belén Roselló, and Ana Miranda. 2016. “Narratives of children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder: A meta-analysis.” Research in Developmental Disabilities 59: 234–254. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ball, John. 1978. “A pragmatic analysis of autistic children’s language with respect to aphasic and normal language development.” PhD diss. Melbourne University.
Baltaxe, Christy A. M. 1977. “Pragmatic deficits in the language of autistic adolescents.” Journal of Pediatric Psychology 2(4): 176–180. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barnes, Julia, and Simon Baron-Cohen. 2011. “ Language in autism: Pragmatics and theory of mind.” In The Handbook of Psycholinguistic and Cognitive Processes, 731–745. London: Psychology Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baron-Cohen, Simon, Alan M. Leslie, and Uta Frith. 1985. “Does the autistic child have a ‘Theory of Mind’?” Cognition 21(1): 37–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1986. “Mechanical, behavioural and intentional understanding of picture stories in autistic children.” British Journal of Developmental Psychology 4(2): 113–125. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baron-Cohen, Simon. 1988. “Social and pragmatic deficits in autism: Cognitive or affective?” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 18(3): 379–402. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1989. “Perceptual role taking and protodeclarative pointing in autism.” British Journal of Developmental Psychology 7(2): 113–127. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1993. “From attention-goal psychology to belief-desire psychology: The development of a Theory of Mind, and its dysfunction.” In Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives from Autism, ed. by Simon Baron-Cohen, Helen Tager-Flusberg, and Donald Cohen, 59–82. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
. 1995. Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bauminger-Zviely, Nirit, Anna Golan-Itshaky, and Gali Tubul-Lavy. 2017. “Speech acts during friends’ and non-friends’ spontaneous conversations in preschool dyads with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder versus typical development.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 47(5): 1380–1390. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bauminger-Zviely, Nirit, Edna Karin, Dorit Kimhi, and Gali Agam-Ben-Artzi. 2014. “Spontaneous peer conversation in preschoolers with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder versus typical development.” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 55(4): 363–373. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Behne, Tanya, Malinda Carpenter, and Michael Tomasello. 2005. “One-year-olds comprehend the communicative intentions behind gestures in a hiding game.” Developmental Science 8(6): 492–499. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berman, Ruth A., and Dan I. Slobin. 1994. Relating Events in Narrative: A Crosslinguistic Developmental Study. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bervoets, Jo, and Kristien Hens. 2020. “Going beyond the catch-22 of autism diagnosis and research: The moral implications of (not) asking ‘what is autism?’” Frontiers in Psychology 11: 529193. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bohn, Manuel, and Michael C. Frank. 2019. “The pervasive role of pragmatics in early language.” Annual Review of Developmental Psychology 1: 223–249. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boorse, Jessica, Miriam Cola, Susan Plate, Lea Yankowitz, Jyoti Pandey, Robert T. Schultz, and Julia Parish-Morris. 2019. “Linguistic markers of autism in girls: Evidence of a ‘blended phenotype’ during storytelling.” Molecular Autism 10(1): 14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brooks, Rechele, and Andrew N. Meltzoff. 2005. “The development of gaze following and its relation to language.” Developmental Science 8(6): 535–543. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Butterworth, George. 2003. “Pointing is the royal road to language for babies.” In Pointing: Where Language, Culture, and Cognition Meet, ed. by Sotaro Kita, 9–33. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Caballero, María, Mercedes Aparici, Mercè Sanz-Torrent, Rosalind Herman, Annalu W. Jones, and Gary Morgan. 2020. “‘El nen s’ha menjat una aranya’: The development of narratives in Catalan speaking children.” Journal of Child Language 47(5): 1030–1051. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Camaioni, Luigia, Paola Perucchini, Francesca Bellagamba, and Cinzia Colonnesi. 2004. “The role of declarative pointing in developing a Theory of Mind.” Infancy 5(3): 291–308. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Capps, Lisa, Jennifer Kehres, and Marian Sigman. 1998. “Conversational abilities among children with autism and children with developmental delays.” Autism 2 (4): 325–344. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Capps, Lisa, Mimi Losh, and Christie Thurber. 2000. “‘The frog ate the bug and made his mouth sad’: Narrative competence in children with autism.” Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chahboun, Safa, Valentin Vulchanov, David Saldana, Hanna Eshuis, and Mila Vulchanova. 2017. “Can you tell it by the prime? A study of metaphorical priming in high-functioning autism in comparison with matched controls.” International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 52 (6): 766–785. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chapman, Robert. 2020. “The reality of autism: On the metaphysics of disorder and diversity.” Philosophical Psychology 33 (6): 799–819. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Charman, Tony. 2004. “Why is joint attention a pivotal skill in autism?” In Autism: Mind and Brain, ed. by Uta Frith and Elisabeth L. Hill, 315–324. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chawarska, Katarzyna, Suzannah Macari, and Frederick Shic. 2013. “Decreased spontaneous attention to social scenes in 6-month-old infants later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders.” Biological Psychiatry 74 (3): 195–203. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chevallier, Coralie, Deirdre Wilson, Francesca Happé, and Ira Noveck. 2010. “Scalar inferences in autism spectrum disorders.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 40 (9): 1104–1117. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chevallier, Coralie, Ira Noveck, Francesca Happé, and Deirdre Wilson. 2011. “What’s in a voice? Prosody as a test case for the Theory of Mind account of autism.” Neuropsychologia 49 (3): 507–517. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro, Danny Fox, and Benjamin Spector. 2012. “The grammatical view of scalar implicatures and the relationship between semantics and pragmatics.” In Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, e. by Klaus Von Heusinger, Claudia Maienborn, and Paul Portner. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Chouinard, Brianna, and Jaclyn Cummine. 2016. “All the world’s a stage: Evaluation of two stages of metaphor comprehension in people with autism spectrum disorder.” Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 23: 107–121. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Herbert H., and Susan E. Brennan. 1991. “Grounding in communication.” In Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition, 127–149. American Psychological Association. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cochet, Hélène, and Jacques Vauclair. 2010. “Pointing gestures produced by toddlers from 15 to 30 months: Different functions, hand shapes and laterality patterns.” Infant Behavior and Development 33 (4): 431–441. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colich, Natalie L., An-Tao Wang, Jordan D. Rudie, Lea M. Hernandez, Susan Y. Bookheimer, and Mirella Dapretto. 2012. “Atypical neural processing of ironic and sincere remarks in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders.” Metaphor and Symbol 27 (1): 70–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colle, Livia, Simon Baron-Cohen, Sally Wheelwright, and Heather K. J. van der Lely. 2008. “Narrative discourse in adults with high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 38 (1): 28–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crais, Elizabeth R., and Naomi Lorch. 1994. “Oral narratives in school-age children.” Topics in Language Disorders 14 (3): 13. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crompton, Catherine J., Danielle Ropar, Catherine V. Evans-Williams, Emma G. Flynn, and Sue Fletcher-Watson. 2020. “Autistic peer-to-peer information transfer is highly effective.” Autism, 24(7), 1704–1712. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deliens, Gaëtane, Fleur Papastamou, Nicolas Ruytenbeek, Peggy Geelhand, and Mark Kissine. 2018. “Selective pragmatic impairment in autism spectrum disorder: Indirect requests versus irony.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 48 (9): 2938–2952. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Demetriou, Evdokia A., Andrew Lampit, Daniel S. Quintana, Sharon L. Naismith, Yeonsil J. C. Song, Jessica E. Pye, et al. 2018. “Autism spectrum disorders: A meta-analysis of executive function.” Molecular Psychiatry 23: 1198–1204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Demetriou, Evdokia A., Maria M. DeMayo, and Adam J. Guastella. 2019. “Executive function in autism spectrum disorder: History, theoretical models, empirical findings, and potential as an endophenotype.” Frontiers in Psychiatry 10: 753. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Diehl, Joshua J., Loisa Bennetto, and Emma C. Young. 2006. “Story recall and narrative coherence of high-functioning children with autism spectrum disorders.” Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 34 (1): 83–98. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Diessel, Holger. 2006. “Demonstratives, joint attention, and the emergence of grammar.” Cognitive Linguistics 17 (4): 463–489. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drew, Alysia, Gillian Baird, Eric Taylor, Emma Milne, and Tony Charman. 2007. “The Social Communication Assessment for Toddlers with Autism (SCATA): An instrument to measure the frequency, form and function of communication in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 37: 648–666. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eigsti, Inge-Marie, and Jessica M. Schuh. 2016. “Language acquisition in autism spectrum disorders: Beyond standardized language measures.” In Innovative Investigations of Language in Autism Spectrum Disorder, ed. by Letitia Naigles. Berlin: APA/Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Falkum, Ingrid Lossius. 2019. “Pragmatic development. Learning to use language to communicate.” In International Handbook of Language Acquisition. Routledge Handbooks Online. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Farroni, Teresa, Elena Menon, and Mark H. Johnson. 2006. “Factors influencing newborns’ preference for faces with eye contact.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 95 (4): 298–308. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Farroni, Teresa, Gergely Csibra, Francesca Simion, and Mark H. Johnson. 2002. “Eye contact detection in humans from birth.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99 (14): 9602–9605. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fay, Warren H., and Angela L. Schuler. 1980. Emerging Language in Autistic Children. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Fine, Jonathan, Gina Bartolucci, Peter Szatmari, and Gabrielle Ginsberg. 1994. “Cohesive discourse in pervasive developmental disorders.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 24 (3): 315–329. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fletcher-Watson, Sue, and Geoffrey Bird. 2020. “Autism and empathy: What are the real links?” Autism 24 (1): 3–6. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foppolo, Francesca, Giulia Mazzaggio, Francesco Panzeri, and Luca Surian. 2021. “Scalar and ad-hoc pragmatic inferences in children: Guess which one is easier.” Journal of Child Language 48 (2): 350–372. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Franco, Francesca. 2005. “Infant pointing: Harlequin, servant of two masters.” In Joint Attention: Communication and Other Minds: Issues in Philosophy and Psychology, ed. by Naomi Eilan, Christoph Hoerl, Teresa McCormack, and Johannes Roessler. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frith, Uta, and Francesca Happé. 1994. “Autism: Beyond ‘Theory of Mind.’” Cognition 50: 115–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frith, Uta. 1989. Autism: Explaining the Enigma. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
. 2008. Autism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Geelhand, Pierre, Fleur Papastamou, Gaëtane Deliens, and Mark Kissine. 2020. “Narrative production in autistic adults: A systematic analysis of the microstructure, macrostructure and internal state language.” Journal of Pragmatics 164: 57–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gernsbacher, Morton Ann, and Shayne R. Pripas-Kapit. 2012. “Who’s missing the point? A commentary on claims that autistic persons have a specific deficit in figurative language comprehension.” Metaphor and Symbol 27 (1): 93–105. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Geurts, Bart, Mark Kissine, and Bart van Tiel. 2019. “Pragmatic reasoning in autism.” In Thinking, Reasoning, and Decision Making in Autism, ed. by Kinga Morsanyi and Ruth M. J. Byrne, 113–134. 1st ed. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Geurts, Bart. 2010. Quantity Implicatures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Geurts, Hilde M., Blythe Corbett, and Marjorie Solomon. 2009. “The paradox of cognitive flexibility in autism.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 13: 74–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gold, Ronit, and Miriam Faust. 2010. “Right hemisphere dysfunction and metaphor comprehension in young adults with Asperger syndrome.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 40: 800–811. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodhart, Frank, and Simon Baron-Cohen. 1993. “How many ways can the point be made? Evidence from children with and without autism.” First Language 13 (38): 225–233. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greco, Giulia, Benjamin Choi, Kimberly Michel, and Susan Faja. 2023. “Here’s the story: Narrative ability and executive function in autism spectrum disorder.” Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 101: 102092. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1975. “Logic and conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, ed. by Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grice, Paul. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hale, Courtney M., and Helen Tager-Flusberg. 2005. “Social communication in children with autism: The relationship between Theory of Mind and discourse development.” Autism 9 (2): 157–178. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Happé, Francesca, and Uta Frith. 2006. “The weak coherence account: Detail-focused cognitive style in autism spectrum disorders.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 36 (1): 5–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Happé, Francesca, Angelica Ronald, and Robert Plomin. 2006. “Time to give up on a single explanation for autism.” Nature Neuroscience 9: 1218–1220. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Happé, Francesca. 1993. “Communicative competence and Theory of Mind in autism: A test of relevance theory.” Cognition 48 (2): 101–119. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harvey, Alice, Heather Spicer-Cain, Nicola Botting, Gail Ryan, and Lucy Henry. 2023. “Assessing ‘coherence’ in the spoken narrative accounts of autistic people: A systematic scoping review.” Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 102: 102108. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hassall, Robert. 2016. “Does everybody with an autism diagnosis have the same underlying condition?” In Re-Thinking Autism: Diagnosis, Identity, and Equality, ed. by Katherine Runswick-Cole, Rebecca Mallett, and Sami Timimi. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.Google Scholar
Heilmann, John, Jon F. Miller, Ann Nockerts, and Cathy Dunaway. 2010. “Properties of the narrative scoring scheme using narrative retells in young school-age children.” American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 19 (2): 154–166. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hill, Elisabeth L. 2004. “Executive dysfunction in autism.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 8 (1): 26–32. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Horn, Laurence. 1989. A Natural History of Negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Horton, William S. 2005. “Conversational common ground and memory processes in language production.” Discourse Processes 40 (1): 1–35. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Horton, William S., and Richard J. Gerrig. 2016. “Revisiting the memory-based processing approach to common ground.” Topics in Cognitive Science 8 (4): 780–795. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hudson, Judith A., and Lauren R. Shapiro. 1991. “From knowing to telling: The development of children’s scripts, stories, and personal narratives.” In Developing Narrative Structure, ed. by Carlota McCabe and Carole Peterson, 89–113. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.Google Scholar
Jary, Mark. 2013. “Two types of implicature: Material and behavioural.” Mind & Language 28 (5): 638–660. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2022. Nothing Is Said: Utterance and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [URL]. DOI logo
Jones, Christopher. D., & Schwartz, Ilene. S. 2009. When Asking Questions Is Not Enough: An Observational Study of Social Communication Differences in High Functioning Children with Autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39, 432–443. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Joseph, Robert M., Laura M. McGrath, and Helen Tager-Flusberg. 2005. “Executive dysfunction and its relation to language ability in verbal school-age children with autism.” Developmental Neuropsychology 27 (3): 361–378. [URL]
Kalandadze, Tamara, Courtenay Norbury, Tormod Nærland, and Kari-Anne B. Næss. 2018. “Figurative language comprehension in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A meta-analytic review.” Autism 22 (2): 99–117. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kalandadze, Tamara, Valentina Bambini, and Kari-Anne B. Næss. 2019. “A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies on metaphor comprehension in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: Do task properties matter?” Applied Psycholinguistics 40 (6): 1421–1454. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kanner, Leo. 1943. “Autistic disturbances of affective contact.” Nervous Child 2 (3): 217–250.Google Scholar
Kasirer, Anat, and Nira Mashal. 2016. “Comprehension and generation of metaphors by children with autism spectrum disorder.” Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 32: 53–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kasirer, Anat, Einat Adi-Japha, and Nira Mashal. 2020. “Verbal and figural creativity in children with autism spectrum disorder and typical development.” Frontiers in Psychology 11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Katsos, Napoleon, and Clara Andrés-Roqueta. 2021. “Where next for pragmatics and mind reading? A situation-based view (response to Kissine).” Language 97 (3): e184–e197. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Katsos, Napoleon and Ostashchenko, Ekaterina. 2021. The role of visual perspective-taking in pragmatic inferencing. Lightening talk presented at MK40: Common Knowledge, Common Ground, and Context in Communication, University College London (25–26 June 25–26, 2021).
Kenan, Noa, Dov A. Zachor, Lisa R. Watson, and Elinor Ben-Itzchak. 2019. “Semantic-pragmatic impairment in the narratives of children with autism spectrum disorders.” Frontiers in Psychology 10: 2756. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kissine, Mikhail, Julie Cano Chervel, Ségolène Carlier, Philippe De Brabanter, Laurent Ducenne, Marie-Christine Pairon, Nicole Deconinck, Vincent Delvenne, and Jacqueline Leybaert. 2015. “Children with autism understand indirect speech acts: Evidence from a semi-structured act-out task.” PloS One 10: e0142191. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kissine, Mikhail. 2016. “Pragmatics as metacognitive control.” Frontiers in Psychology 6. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kita, Sotaro (ed). 2003. Pointing: Where Language, Culture, and Cognition Meet. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kleinke, Chris L. 1986. “Gaze and eye contact: A research review.” Psychological Bulletin 100 (1): 78–100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Klin, Ami, Sara S. Sparrow, Anke de Bildt, Domenic V. Cicchetti, Donald J. Cohen, and Fred R. Volkmar. 1999. “A normed study of face recognition in autism and related disorders.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 29 (6): 499–508. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Klin, Ami, Sarah Shultz, and Warren Jones. 2015. “Social visual engagement in infants and toddlers with autism: Early developmental transitions and a model of pathogenesis.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 50: 189–203. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lampri, Sophia, Eleni Peristeri, Theodoros Marinis, and Maria Andreou. 2023. “Figurative language processing in autism spectrum disorders: A review.” Autism Research 1–16.Google Scholar
LeBarton, Eve S., and Jana M. Iverson. 2016. “Gesture development in toddlers with an older sibling with autism.” International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 51 (1): 18–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liszkowski, Ulf, Malinda Carpenter, and Michael Tomasello. 2007. “Pointing out new news, old news, and absent referents at 12 months of age.” Developmental Science 10 (2): F1–F7. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009. “Prelinguistic infants, but not chimpanzees, communicate about absent entities.” Psychological Science 20 (5): 654–660. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liszkowski, Ulf, Penelope Brown, Tim Callaghan, Akira Takada, and Connie De Vos. 2012. “A prelinguistic gestural universal of human communication.” Cognitive Science 36 (4): 698–713. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liszkowski, Ulf. 2013. “Using Theory of Mind.” Child Development Perspectives 7 (2): 104–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lombardo, Michael V., Meng-Chuan Lai, and Simon Baron-Cohen. 2019. “Big data approaches to decomposing heterogeneity across the autism spectrum.” Molecular Psychiatry 24 (10): 1435–1450. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
López, Beatriz, and Susan R. Leekam. 2003. “Do children with autism fail to process information in context?” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 44 (2): 285–300. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lord, Catherine, Michael Rutter, Pamela S. DiLavore, Susan Risi, Katherine Gotham, and Somer Bishop. 2012. (ADOS®-2) Autism Diagnostic Observation ScheduleTM, Second Edition. Torrance, CA: Western Psychological Services. [URL]
Losh, Molly, and Lisa Capps. 2003. “Narrative ability in high-functioning children with autism or Asperger’s syndrome.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 33 (3): 239–251. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maenner, Matthew J., Zachary Warren, Amy R. Williams, et al. 2023. “Prevalence and characteristics of autism spectrum disorder among children aged 8 years — Autism and developmental disabilities monitoring network, 11 sites, United States, 2020.” MMWR Surveillance Summaries 72 (SS–2): 1–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mäkinen, Leena, Soile Loukusa, Eeva Leinonen, Irma Moilanen, Hanna Ebeling, and Sari Kunnari. 2014. “Characteristics of narrative language in autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from the Finnish.” Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 8: 987–996. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mäkinen, Leena. 2014. Narrative Language in Typically Developing Children, Children With Specific Language Impairment and Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder. Väitöskirja: University of Oulu. [URL]
Marocchini, Elisa, Sara Di Paola, Guido Mazzaggio, and Filippo Domaneschi. 2022. “Understanding indirect requests for information in high-functioning autism.” Cognitive Processing 23 (1): 129–153. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marocchini, Elisa. 2023. “Impairment or difference? The case of Theory of Mind abilities and pragmatic competence in the autism spectrum.” Applied Psycholinguistics 44 (3): 365–383. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martin, Ines, and Skye McDonald. 2004. “An exploration of causes of non-literal language problems in individuals with Asperger syndrome.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 34: 311–328. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mashal, Nira, and Adi Kasirer. 2011. “Thinking maps enhance metaphoric competence in children with autism and learning disabilities.” Research in Developmental Disabilities 32 (6): 2045–2054. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matthews, Danielle (ed). 2014. Pragmatic Development in First Language Acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matthews, Danielle, Hannah Biney, and Kirsten Abbot-Smith. 2018. “Individual differences in children’s pragmatic ability: A review of associations with formal language, social cognition, and executive functions.” Language Learning and Development 14 (3): 186–223. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mayer, Mercer. (1969) 2003. Frog Where Are You? New York: Dial Books for Young Readers.Google Scholar
Mazzaggio, Guido, Francesca Foppolo, Remo Job, and Luca Surian. 2021. “Ad-hoc and scalar implicatures in children with autism spectrum disorder.” Journal of Communication Disorders 90: 106089. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCabe, Allyssa, and Carole Peterson. 1984. “What makes a good story.” Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 13 (6): 457–480. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McKinley, Gail L., Sarah Brown-Schmidt, and Aaron S. Benjamin. 2017. “Memory for conversation and the development of common ground.” Memory & Cognition 45: 1281–1294. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McMahon, Catherine M., Laurie A. Vismara, and Marjorie Solomon. 2013. “Measuring changes in social behavior during a social skills intervention for higher-functioning children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 43 (8): 1843–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Melogno, Sergio, and Maria Antonietta Pinto. 2022. “Devising trainings to enhance the capabilities of children with autism spectrum disorder to cope with metaphor: A review of the literature.” Frontiers in Communication 7: 915873. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Melogno, Sergio, Maria Antonietta Pinto, and Margherita Orsolini. 2017. “Novel metaphors comprehension in a child with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder: A study on assessment and treatment.” Frontiers in Psychology 7. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Milton, Damian E. 2012. “On the ontological status of autism: The ‘double empathy problem.’” Disability & Society 27 (6): 883–887. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mol, Jorik. 2020. “Autistic in times of Covid-19.” [URL]
Morra, Linda. 2016. “Raising awareness of how Asperger persons perceive their capacity to use metaphors.” Med. Stor 11: 129–146.Google Scholar
Morsanyi, Kinga, Darko Stamenković, and Keith J. Holyoak. 2020. “Metaphor processing in autism: A systematic review and meta-analysis.” Developmental Review 57: 100925. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mundy, Peter, and Marian Sigman. 1989a. “Specifying the nature of the social impairment in autism.” In Autism: New Perspectives on Diagnosis, Nature, and Treatment, ed. by Geraldine Dawson, 3–12. Guilford.Google Scholar
. 1989b. “The theoretical implications of joint-attention deficits in autism.” Development and Psychopathology 1 (3): 173–183. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mundy, Peter, Marian Sigman, and Connie Kasari. 1994. “Joint attention, developmental level, and symptom presentation in autism.” Development and Psychopathology 6 (3): 389–401. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mundy, Peter, Marian Sigman, Judith Ungerer, and Tyler Sherman. 1987. “Nonverbal communication and play correlates of language development in autistic children.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 17 (3): 349–364. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norbury, Courtenay F., and Dorothy V. M. Bishop. 2003. “Narrative skills of children with communication impairments.” International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 38 (3): 287–313. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norbury, Courtenay F., Tanya Gemmell, and Rhea Paul. 2014. “Pragmatics abilities in narrative production: A cross-disorder comparison.” Journal of Child Language 41 (3): 485–510. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norbury, Courtenay Frazier. 2005. “The relationship between Theory of Mind and metaphor: evidence from children with language impairment and autistic spectrum disorder.” British Journal of Developmental Psychology 23 (3): 383–399. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Novogrodsky, Rama, and Lisa R. Edelson. 2016. “Ambiguous pronoun use in narratives of children with autism spectrum disorders.” First Language 32 (2): 241–252. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Onea, Edgar. 2016. Potential Questions at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface. BRILL. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Özçalışkan, Şeyda, Lauren B. Adamson, and Nevena Dimitrova. 2016. “Early deictic but not other gestures predict later vocabulary in both typical development and autism.” Autism 20 (6): 754–763. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pagmar, Daniel, Kirsten Abbot-Smith, and Danielle Matthews. 2022. “Predictors of children’s conversational contingency.” Language Development Research 2 (1): 139–179. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Panzeri, Francesca, Gaia Mazzaggio, Beatrice Giustolisi, Silvia Silleresi, and Luca Surian. 2022. “The atypical pattern of irony comprehension in autistic children.” Applied Psycholinguistics 43 (4): 757–784. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Parellada, Mara, Álvaro Andreu-Bernabeu, María Burdeus, Ana San José Cáceres, Esther Urbiola, Lisa C. Carpenter, Nina V. Kraguljac et al. 2023. “In search of biomarkers to guide interventions in autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review.” American Journal of Psychiatry 180 (1): 23–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pastor-Cerezuela, Gemma, Juan Carlos Tordera Yllescas, Francisca González-Sala, Mariángeles Montagut-Asunción, and María-Isabel Fernández-Andrés. 2018. “Comprehension of generalized conversational implicatures by children with and without autism spectrum disorder.” Frontiers in Psychology 9 (272). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Petrolini, Valentina, and Agustín Vicente. 2022. “The challenges raised by comorbidity in psychiatric research: The case of autism.” Philosophical Psychology 35 (8): 1234–1263. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Petrolini, Valentina, Marta Jorba, and Agustín Vicente. 2023. “What does it take to be rigid? Reflections on the notion of rigidity in autism.” Frontiers in Psychiatry 14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pierce, Karen, Shanna Marinero, Rachel Hazin, Brooke McKenna, Cassandra C. Barnes, and Amita Malige. 2016. “Eye tracking reveals abnormal visual preference for geometric images as an early biomarker of an autism spectrum disorder subtype associated with increased symptom severity.” Biological Psychiatry 79 (8): 657–666. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pijnacker, Janneke, Peter Hagoort, Jan Buitelaar, Jan-Paul Teunisse, and Bart Geurts. 2009. “Pragmatic inferences in high-functioning adults with autism and Asperger syndrome.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 39 (4): 607–618. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quora: [URL]
: [URL]
Ramos-Cabo, Sofia, Valentin Vulchanov, and Mila Vulchanova. 2021. “Different ways of making a point: A study of gestural communication in typical and atypical early development.” Autism Research 14 (5): 984–996. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reid, Vincent M., Tricia Striano, Jennifer Kaufman, and Mark H. Johnson. 2004. “Eye gaze cueing facilitates neural processing of objects in 4-month-old infants.” NeuroReport 15 (16): 2553–2555. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Riester, Arndt. 2019. “Constructing QUD trees.” In Questions in Discourse, Vol. 2, 164–193. BRILL. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Craige. 2012. “Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics.” Semantics and Pragmatics 5: 1–69. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roch, Maja, Elena Florit, and Chiara Levorato. 2016. “Narrative competence of Italian–English bilingual children between 5 and 7 years.” Applied Psycholinguistics 37 (1): 49–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rumpf, Anne-Lise, Inge Kamp-Becker, Katja Becker, and Christina Kauschke. 2012. “Narrative competence and internal state language of children with Asperger syndrome and ADHD.” Research in Developmental Disabilities 33 (5): 1395–1407. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rundblad, Gabriella, and Dominique Annaz. 2010. “The atypical development of metaphor and metonymy comprehension in children with autism.” Autism 14 (1): 29–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rutter, Michael, Ann Le Couteur, and Catherine Lord. 2003. Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised. Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services.Google Scholar
Saban-Bezalel, Revital, Daniel Dolfin, Nathan Laor, and Nira Mashal. 2019. “Irony comprehension and mentalizing ability in children with and without autism spectrum disorder.” Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 58: 30–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sah, Wan-hsiang, and Ping Torng. 2015. “Narrative coherence of Mandarin-speaking children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder: An investigation into causal relations.” First Language 35 (3): 189–212. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sah, Wan-hsiang. 2015. “The development of coherence in narratives: Causal relations.” Taiwan Journal of Linguistics 13 (1). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scaife, Margaret, and Jerome S. Bruner. 1975. “The capacity for joint visual attention in the infant.” Nature 253 (5489). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schaeffer, Jeanette, Maisa Abd El-Raziq, Elena Castroviejo, Stéphanie Durrleman, Sandrine Ferré, Irina Grama, Petra Hendriks et al. 2023. “Language in autism: Domains, profiles and co-occurring conditions.” Journal of Neural Transmission. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schaeken, Walter, Maarten Van Haeren, and Valentina Bambini. 2018. “The understanding of scalar implicatures in children with autism spectrum disorder: Dichotomized responses to violations of informativeness.” Frontiers in Psychology 9. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schneider, Phyllis, Denyse Hayward, and Rachel V. Dubé. 2006. “Storytelling from pictures using the Edmonton narrative norms instrument” Canadian Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology 30 (4): 224–238.Google Scholar
Scionti, Nicola, Leonardo Zampini, and Gian Marco Marzocchi. 2023. “The relationship between narrative skills and executive functions across childhood: A systematic review and meta-analysis.” Children 10 (8): 1391. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
South, Mikle, and Jackie Rodgers. 2017. “Sensory, emotional and cognitive contributions to anxiety in autism spectrum disorders.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson. (1986) 1995. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Stirling, Lesley, Sharynne Douglas, Susan R. Leekam, and Lee Carey. 2014. “The use of narrative in studying communication in autism spectrum disorders.” In Communication in Autism, ed. by Joanne Arciuli and Jon Brock, 171–215. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Su, Yi-Chen, and Li-Yu Su. 2015. “Interpretation of logical words in Mandarin-speaking children with autism spectrum disorders: Uncovering knowledge of semantics and pragmatics.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 45: 1938–1950. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Suh, Jinah, Inge-Marie Eigsti, Letitia Naigles, Megan Barton, Elizabeth Kelley, and Deborah Fein. 2014. “Narrative performance of optimal outcome children and adolescents with a history of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 44 (7): 1681–1694. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tager-Flusberg, Helen, and Kate Sullivan. 1994. “A second look at second-order belief attribution in autism.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 24 (5): 577–586. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tager-Flusberg, Helen, and Marilyn Anderson. 1991. “The development of contingent discourse ability in autistic children.” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 32 (7): 1123–1134. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tager-Flusberg, Helen, Rhea Paul, and Catherine Lord. 2005. “Language and communication in autism.” Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders 1: 335–364. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tager-Flusberg, Helen. 1981. “On the nature of linguistic functioning in early infantile autism.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 11: 45–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1988. “On the nature of a language acquisition disorder: The example of autism“. In F. Kessel (Ed.), The development of language and language researchers. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
. 1996. “Brief report: Current theory and research on language and communication in autism.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 26 (2): 169–172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2006. “Defining language phenotypes in autism.” Clinical Neuroscience Research 6 (3–4): 219–224. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tanaka, James W., and Alison Sung. 2016. “The ‘eye avoidance’ hypothesis of autism face processing.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 46 (5): 1538–1552. DOI logo
Tek, Saime, Lindsey Mesite, Deborah Fein, and Letitia Naigles. 2014. “Longitudinal analyses of expressive language development reveal two distinct language profiles among young children with autism spectrum disorders.” Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 44: 75–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, Michael, Malinda Carpenter, and Ulf Liszkowski. 2007. “A new look at infant pointing.” Child Development 78 (3): 705–722. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, Michael. 1995. “Joint attention as social cognition.” In Joint Attention: Its Origins and Role in Development, ed. by Chris Moore and Philip J. Dunham, 103–130. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. / Psychology Press.Google Scholar
. 2003. Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Trabasso, Tom, and Linda L. Sperry. 1985. “Causal relatedness and importance of story events.” Journal of Memory and Language 24 (5): 595–611. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Herwegen, Jo, and Gabriella Rundblad. 2018. “A cross-sectional and longitudinal study of novel metaphor and metonymy comprehension in children, adolescents, and adults with autism spectrum disorder.” Frontiers in Psychology 9: 945. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Tiel, Bas, and Marc Kissine. 2018. “Quantity-based reasoning in the broader autism phenotype: A web-based study.” Applied Psycholinguistics 39 (6): 1373–1403. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vicente, Agustín, and Ingrid L. Falkum. 2023. “Accounting for the preference for literal meanings in autism spectrum conditions.” Mind & Language: 119–140. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vicente, Agustín, and Isabel Martín-González. 2021. “The literalist bias in the autistic spectrum conditions: Review of existing accounts.” Studies in Psychology 42 (2): 298–333. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vicente, Agustín, Catrinel Michel, and Valentina Petrolini. 2023. “Literalism in autistic people: A predictive processing proposal.” Review of Philosophy and Psychology: 1–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vulchanova, Mila, and Valentin Vulchanov. 2022. “Rethinking figurative language in autism: What evidence can we use for interventions?” Frontiers in Communication 7: 910850. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vulchanova, Mila, Daniela Saldaña, Sara Chahboun, and Valentin Vulchanov. 2015. “Figurative language processing in atypical populations: The ASD perspective.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9: 24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vulchanova, Mila, Emily Milburn, Valentin Vulchanov, and Giuseppe Baggio. 2019. “Boon or burden? The role of compositional meaning in figurative language processing and acquisition.” Journal of Logic, Language and Information 28 (2): 359–387. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Walenski, Matthew, and Tracy Love. 2017. “The real-time comprehension of idioms by typical children, children with specific language impairment and children with autism.” Journal of Speech Pathology & Therapy 3 (1): 130. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wang, Qi, Dorothy J. Campbell, Suzanne L. Macari, Katarzyna Chawarska, and Frederick Shic. 2018. “Operationalizing atypical gaze in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders: A cohesion-based approach.” Molecular Autism 9 (1): 25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Westerveld, Marleen F., and Joanne M. A. Roberts. 2017. “The oral narrative comprehension and production abilities of verbal preschoolers on the autism spectrum.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 48 (4): 260–272. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Westerveld, Marleen F., Pascale Filiatrault-Veilleux, and Jennifer Paynter. 2021. “Inferential narrative comprehension ability of young school-age children on the autism spectrum.” Autism & Developmental Language Impairments 6: 23969415211035666. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wetherby, Amy M., and C. Andrew Prutting. 1984. “Profiles of communicative and cognitive-social abilities in autistic children.” Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 27: 364–377. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Whyte, Elisabeth M., and Keith E. Nelson. 2015. “Trajectories of pragmatic and nonliteral language development in children with autism spectrum disorders”. Journal of Communication Disorders, 54: 2–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Anna C., and Dorothy V. M. Bishop. 2020. “Registered report: Investigating a preference for certainty in conversation among autistic adults compared to dyslexic adults and the general population.” PeerJ 8: e10398. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2021. “‘Second guessing yourself all the time about what they really mean…’: Cognitive differences between autistic and non-autistic adults in understanding implied meaning.” Autism Research 14 (1): 93–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2022. “A novel online assessment of pragmatic and core language skills: An attempt to tease apart language domains in children.” Journal of Child Language 49 (1): 38–59. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
World Health Organization. 2022. ICD-11: International Classification of Diseases (11th Revision). [URL]
Ying Sng, Christine C., Mark Carter, and Jennifer Stephenson. 2018. “A systematic review of the comparative pragmatic differences in conversational skills of individuals with autism.” Autism & Developmental Language Impairments 3. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Young, Erin C., Jennifer J. Diehl, Deborah Morris, Susan L. Hyman, and Loisa Bennetto. 2005. “The use of two language tests to identify pragmatic language problems in children with autism spectrum disorders.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 36 (1): 62–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zanchi, Paola, and Laura Zampini. 2021. “The narrative competence task.” European Journal of Psychological Assessment 37 (1): 15–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zane, Emily, and Rebecca B. Grossman. 2023. “Analysis of noun phrase ambiguity in narratives reveals differences in referential establishment but not cohesion for older autistic children.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 66 (8): 2802–2820. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zeidan, Joe, Eric Fombonne, James Scorah, Ayesha Ibrahim, Maureen S. Durkin, Shekhar Saxena, Ayesha Yusuf, Andrew Shih, and Mayada Elsabbagh. 2022. “Global prevalence of autism: A systematic review update.” Autism Research 15 (5): 778–790. DOI logoGoogle Scholar