Abstract
Figurative and extended uses of language are nonliteral utterances such as irony, sarcasm, and idioms and comprise a core part of social interaction. Children with typical development (TD) show a progressive adultlike understanding of figurative language around the age of ten. In contrast, individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or developmental language disorder often display difficulties with figurative language. However, these difficulties are a puzzle in that the actual underlying causes remain unclear. Those individuals who struggle with understanding figurative language need support through effective interventions. These should be based on solid research findings, which is often problematic as research in this field is characterized by conflicting and incomplete findings. The intention of this study is to conduct a literature review of both available studies and those intervention programs that seek to improve figurative language abilities in these atypical populations. This review will not only provide an overview of available intervention programs but also reveal the research gaps through critically appraising earlier studies. This is done as, in a manner of speaking, research reflects our theoretical understanding of the topic at hand, while interventions reflect the ways in which they are manifested into practice. This will serve to give the reader a more complete overview of the state of knowledge on figurative language and neurodevelopmental disorders. This article may be read for an overview of the field, but it also aims to point out the areas where additional research is needed. For instance, while figurative language takes many forms, there is a disproportionate scholarly focus on metaphors compared to other types. We will ultimately highlight promising approaches and make suggestions for future directions in terms of research and practice.
Highlights
Figurative language refers to types of verbal utterances that deviate from the literal or conventional meaning of what is being said
Eye-gaze data showed that the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) cohorts focused their attention on the images representing the target meaning and the literal meaning, with longer periods of eye-gaze fixation on each. These findings suggest that the ASD participants do not randomly miss the target meaning but consider it as a viable possibility, despite eventually selecting the literal alternative with greater frequency than the control groups
Other research studies have presented strong evidence supporting the premise of the implication of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in pragmatic skills and have considered it a major component of the “mirror neuron” functioning (Kim et al, 2018; Carr et al, 2003; Shamay-Tsoory et al, 2009). The justification behind this is that as human beings, we learn pragmatic skills and we develop them through social communicative situations and imitations, and if the brain area responsible for imitation works differently on a physiological level for the individuals in the ASD group, it is no surprise that they would perform worse in idiomatic tasks than their typically developing peers
Summary
Figurative language refers to types of verbal utterances that deviate from the literal or conventional meaning of what is being said. Even for typically developing individuals, the skills and capabilities required for this processing take time to acquire, but this is even more so for populations with language deficits While they remain few in number, some scholars have highlighted the importance of intervention programs, starting with the foundational area of structural language, expressing an intention to build up to the pragmatic level (Kalandadze et al, 2018). The intention of this literature review is to provide an overview of available research and intervention programs; in particular, to highlight those areas that the extant research has given less focus, providing suggestions for future directions in terms of research and practice. This article will not deal with the literature surrounding metaphors, as these are by far the most studied of figurative language tropes
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