Making beds and dying of boredom literally: A developmental study on the comprehension of nonliteral uses of language in autism
- Marta Ponciano, marta.ponciano@ehu.eus(compose email, opens in email app.), Linguistics and Basque Studies, University of the Basque Country (opens in new tab)
- Agustín Vicente, Basque Country University, None
- José Vicente Hernández Conde José Vicente Hernández Conde ORCID profile. (opens in new tab) , Department of Philosophy, Universidad de Valladolid (opens in new tab)
- Elena Castroviejo, Basque Country University, None
Abstract
Comprehension of simple nonliteral uses of language was investigated in three- to nine-year-old autistic and linguistically matched typically developing (TD) children, by assessing their understanding of nonliteral uses of language with potential literal senses. Children were tested on conventional metaphors, idioms, hyperboles, and light verb constructions. The aim of the study was to determine whether autistic children showed a genuinely strong tendency to interpret nonliteral uses of language literally across development. A total of 166 children (N = 42 Autistic children; N= 124 TD children) were tested using a paradigm with online (response times) and offline (picture selection) measures. Overall, there were no significant group differences on the picture selection task, but autistic children were slower in spite of increasing verbal age. Both groups showed continuous improvement of their understanding of literal and nonliteral senses with increasing verbal mental age. The results, nevertheless, call for a reflection on the (possible) literalist behavior in autism, indicating that it is important to take into account individual variation, as we observed different kinds of performance within the autistic group.
Keywords:
- nonliteral uses of language
- autism
- literalism
- development
- heterogeneity
Published on
23 May 2025
Peer Reviewed