A Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study of Novel Metaphor and Metonymy Comprehension in Children, Adolescents, and Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Jo Van Herwegen,Gabriella Rundblad

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00945

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that comprehension of figurative language is impaired in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, most studies have focused on lexicalized expressions and have only examined performance at one particular point in time, without examining how performance changes over development. The current study examined the comprehension of novel metaphor and metonymy in individuals with ASDs from a large age range, using both a cross-sectional (Experiment 1) and longitudinal design (Experiment 2). Performance in the ASD group was lower compared to typically developing (TD) controls, across all ages. Importantly, the results from Experiments 1 and 2 showed that, although chronological age was not a good predictor for performance of either novel metaphor or metonymy in the cross-sectional design, performance improved when longitudinal data was considered. Correlations between vocabulary knowledge, visuo-spatial abilities and figurative language comprehension abilities were also explored.

Highlights

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is diagnosed on the basis of a dyad of behavioral impairments in the areas of social interaction and communication, as well as restricted and repetitive activities or interests (DSM V, American Psychiatric Association, 2013)
The current study addresses this shortcoming by examining the development of metaphor and metonymy comprehension in ASD and how comprehension abilities improve with time using both a cross-sectional and longitudinal design
We examined the relationship between novel metaphor and metonymy, and verbal ability, as it has been suggested that comprehension of lexicalized figurative language in ASD is in line with their verbal abilities

Summary

Introduction

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is diagnosed on the basis of a dyad of behavioral impairments in the areas of social interaction and communication, as well as restricted and repetitive activities or interests (DSM V, American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Dennis et al (2001) examined performance in eight high-functioning children with ASD on an inference task and a metaphor task. They found that ASD children were less able to understand metaphors and idioms than typically developing (TD) peers, even though they had no problems understanding that a word can have different meanings. MacKay and Shaw (2004) investigated comprehension of a range of figurative expressions, including metonymy, hyperbole, irony, etc.

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