Comprehension Difficulties Research Articles

EFL Learner's Strategies to Build Self-Confidence in Speaking: A Narrative Inquiry

Building self-confidence is essential for developing effective speaking skills in English as a Foreign Language (EFL). This study explores the strategies of an EFL learner to enhance his self-confidence in speaking and examines the challenges he faces in the process. The participant was an Indonesian graduate student from Gadjah Mada University, and data were collected through semi-structured interviews to provide qualitative insights. Narrative inquiry was used to analyze the responses, while thematic analysis was applied to identify key patterns. The findings revealed that memory strategy, prepared talk, and extramural English exposure were particularly effective in building self-confidence in speaking. Of these, extramural English exposure played a significant role in boosting the participant's speaking confidence. However, challenges such as limited vocabulary, comprehension difficulties, and inconsistent language practice were noted. A major barrier was the lack of vocabulary, which undermined the participant's confidence in speaking. This study provides valuable insights for language learners aiming to improve their speaking confidence and offers implications for teachers in refining their teaching methods to support learners' needs.

Miscue Analysis as a Diagnostic Tool: Exploring English Reading Challenges among Chinese Middle School Students

With the increasing importance of English, Chinese middle school students face significant challenges in developing English proficiency. This study explores the English reading abilities of Chinese middle school students through the innovative method of miscue analysis, which examines the deviations from the expected response during the reading process to reveal their underlying reading strategies and shortcomings. Pioneered by Ken Goodman, miscue analysis has provided valuable insights into reading behaviors across diverse populations. This research involves 40 junior high school students from Tianjin Foreign Language School, analyzing the types and causes of miscues in their reading process. The findings indicate that these students mainly face challenges such as having a limited vocabulary, making grammatical errors and experiencing comprehension difficulties. The result emphasizes the potential of miscue analysis as a diagnostic tool in second-language education, offering educators a deeper understanding of students reading processes, guiding the development of targeted interventions to enhance the quality of second-language education. Future research should focus on expanding the sample size, developing specific scientific interventions to increase credibility, and applying miscue analysis to broader student populations and contexts to provide a comprehensive understanding of factors influencing English language learning in China.

Academic Backwardness among Students of Dhaka Medical College: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Background: Socioeconomic challenges, inadequate early education, poor teaching quality, outdated curricula, insufficient infrastructure, limited technological access, and political instability influence academic backwardness among medical students in developing countries like Bangladesh. Financial constraints and family responsibilities hinder students' focus and resources. Educational systems often rely on learning and lack well-trained faculty and modern facilities. Additionally, language barriers and psychological stress further impact student performance. Efforts to address these issues include financial aid, teacher training, curriculum reforms, infrastructure improvements, and mental health support, all aimed at creating a supportive and effective learning environment.Objective: To evaluate the profile and sociodemographic characteristics in terms of students’ academic performance. Materials and Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted among students of Dhaka Medical College over six months (July 1, 2023 December 31, 2023). All undergraduate medical students in their 3rd, 4th, and 5th years at Dhaka Medical College who had lost at least one academic year were included in the study. The sample size was 46. Data were collected using a mixed questionnaire for appropriate statistical analysis.Results: Most respondents 36 (78.3%) were aged 2426, predominantly male 26 (56.5%), unmarried 38 (82.6%), and from nuclear families 44 (95.7%) with well-educated parents. Academic performance showed that only 5 (23.8%) passed the final exam on the first attempt. The range of academic year loss was 15 years. Key challenges included subject comprehension difficulties 15 (32.6%), pre-exam study habits 36 (78.3%), and nervousness during oral exams 42 (91.3%), along with familial issues like illness 20 (43.5%) and financial constraints 12 (26%).Conclusion: The study highlights that medical students from well-educated families face substantial academic and personal challenges, leading to significant delays in their education. This underscores the urgent need for support systems and focused interventions to address these issues effectively. The Journal of Ad-din Women's Medical College; Vol. 13 (1), Jan 2025; p 4-8

Boosting Verbal Memory Capacity in Elementary School Students : A Face to Face Intervention Study

This study aims to measure the effectiveness of non-technological working memory interventions in improving the verbal working memory capacity of a third-grade student, who experiences learning difficulties in reading comprehension and maintaining focus in class.The research employed a qualitative approach using a single-case reversal design (A1BA2) over 12 sessions. The intervention focused on enhancing D's phonological loop function through face-to-face, non-digital working memory training exercises, such as the odd one out and listening recall tasks. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with parents and teachers, as well as non-participatory observations in both school and home environments. Data analysis involved comparing pre- and post-intervention performance to identify changes in working memory abilities. The findings indicate that this intervention can enhance verbal working memory capacity, supporting improvements in reading comprehension and focus. This suggests that non-technological, easily implementable interventions can provide a practical solution for enhancing cognitive abilities in children, particularly those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, with potential long-term benefits for academic performance.

Easy Audios: from Readability to Listenability

This article provides a foundational exploration of key concepts related to the development of “easy audios”, an emerging accessibility service based on Easy Language (EL). EL encompasses a set of guidelines for simplifying language to enhance accessibility for individuals with reading comprehension difficulties, applicable across various formats, including written, oral, and multimodal content. The article examines the transition from easy written texts to easy audios, focusing on readability and listenability, crucial concepts in both foreign language learning and audiovisual accessibility. The study highlights existing practices in easy subtitles and audio descriptions and discusses innovative hybrid services such as easy audios, which combine EL and audiovisual translation principles. Furthermore, the research explores how easy audios could be developed for improved comprehension, particularly for those who struggle with audiovisual content. Conclusions suggest that essential features for listenability in easy audios have been identified, highlighting the importance of clear linguistic structures, appropriate sound mixing, and careful prosody. However, the article emphasises the need for further research to fully understand and refine these features, particularly as they relate to the development of easy audio services in various contexts. Lay summary Easy Language aims to make texts easier to understand. There are recommendations and some research on written Easy Language, but not so much on spoken Easy Language. The WEL project aims to investigate spoken Easy Language, more specifically the so-called “easy audios”. At the beginning of the WEL project, we revised existing publications to better understand some key concepts. This is what we are presenting in this article.In this article, we define some key notions: when we refer to written texts, we talk about legibility and readability. When we refer to spoken words, we talk about intelligibility and listenability.In this article, we look at the concept of listenability in foreign language learning and audiovisual accessibility to see what other researchers have found. We also provide a summary of what current guidelines recommend.At the end of the article, we summarise some key features that improve listenability and focus on prosodic elements. These include: a) clear enunciation with a focus on pronunciation; b) appropriate prosody, in terms of: pitch, volume, voice quality, speech rate, and pauses.Conclusions indicate that important features for making audios easy to listen include clear language, proper sound mixing, and careful rhythm. However, the article stresses that more research is needed to better understand and improve these features, especially when creating easy audio services for different situations.

Специфика формирования коммуникативных навыков у детей раннего и дошкольного возраста с расстройствами аутистического спектра

<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Objectives</strong>. Speech development disorders in young and preschool-aged children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) can, in some cases, lead to significant limitations or a complete absence of spoken language by the time formal schooling begins. The development of communicative skills plays a central role in the growth of a child with ASD, enabling participation in joint activities with adults and peers. This study explores strategies for fostering both verbal and nonverbal communication skills in young and preschool-aged children with ASD.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Methods</strong>. The study describes the features of communicative skill development in 10 children aged 3 to 5 years with ASD who participated in group sessions based on the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM). Sessions were conducted over the course of one year, with a total duration of 5—6 hours per week. Diagnostic tools included the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition (ADOS 2); the Communication Matrix; and the Checklist of Target Skills for Curriculum Planning in ESDM. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Results</strong>. Implementation of communication development strategies — utilizing speech, early communication tools, and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) — resulted in notable positive dynamics in both socialcommunicative development and mastery of typical preschool activities. These improvements supported the children’s integration into kindergarten groups. The majority of the participants (8 out of 10) began using speech as their primary means of communication, while 2 children used AAC tools to express requests, make choices, and participate in social interactions.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Conclusions</strong>. The severity of autistic traits, difficulties in speech comprehension, limitations in imitation, and other factors negatively impact social and communicative development, including the ability to use speech as a means of communication in young and preschool-aged children with ASD. Further research with a larger sample is warranted to gain deeper insight into the factors influencing communicative and speech development in this population.</p>

Prosodic Reading in Students with Specific Comprehension Difficulties

This study explores the expressive reading skills of Spanish-speaking students experiencing challenges in reading comprehension during the first year of secondary school in Argentina (grade 7). Initially, a cohort of 187 students was examined, leading to the formation of two groups: 27 students with specific comprehension difficulties (SCD) and 27 with proficient comprehension. The groups were matched in terms of decoding skills. Students were tested with a task requiring the computation of punctuation marks and an analytical prosodic reading scale that assesses various parameters such as volume, intonation, pauses, phrasing, and quality. Notably, statistically significant differences emerged between the two groups across all measures. Moreover, robust correlations were identified between expressive reading measures and text comprehension in students with SCD. A logistic regression analysis pinpointed phrasing as the sole significant predictor of group classification. These results underscore the pivotal role of prosodic reading in text comprehension.

658 Artificial Intelligence Does Not Increase Readability in Burn Education for Patients Without a Medical Background

Abstract Introduction Patient education for burn victims in the post hospital setting remains a challenging endeavor. During the beginning of 2024 our Burn Center unveiled a bundle of short documents for distribution to burn patients in the outpatient setting pertaining to burn care. In our state individuals without a high school diploma remains 2% greater than the national average. As a next step in quality improvement, the educational materials were analyzed for several metrics approximating reading comprehension levels and then rewritten with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) software. Our hypothesis was that utilization of artificial intelligence would improve comprehension across all metrics allowing easier access to burn education for patients from all education backgrounds. Methods Eight documents that underwent widespread distribution in the burn clinic at the start of 2024 were analyzed utilizing open-source readability analyzer. There were various original human authors. Utilizing open-source AI software the text was submitted with a command requesting simplification of the text. The results were reanalyzed for comprehensibility. Results All documents initially written by human authors could be understood on average by patients with a 6th grade education (6.7). Open-source artificial intelligence software increased the comprehension difficulty across all metrics (Figure 1). Average percentage of polysyllabic words and long sentences increased to 69.3% from 62.0% with AI usage. Dale-Chall Score, a metric based on 3000 common words familiar to 4th graders, had the least amount of average change (8.14 to 9.3) compared to other metrics after AI modification. Conclusions Clinical human authors can create documents for burn patients that are easily readable with only a grade school education. While AI may facilitate stylistic improvements, it appears that at least open-source software presently available only increases the education level required for comprehension. Applicability of Research to Practice This process of comprehension analysis is easily reproducible with virtually no cost. With advances in the future in AI technology, any burn center can quickly apply a similar process to reach more patients from lower educational backgrounds. Funding for the Study N/A

Enhancing Communication with Older Adults with Cognitive Impairment in Healthcare Settings

Abstract The aging global population has led to a rise in cognitive impairments, including dementia, presenting significant communication challenges in health care. Effective communication with cognitively impaired older adults is vital for ensuring their understanding, cooperation, and well-being. This narrative review explores evidence-based communication strategies to enhance interactions with this vulnerable population. A comprehensive literature search was conducted across databases such as PubMed, Medline, and PsycINFO, covering publications from 2010 to December 2024. Findings highlight the importance of verbal communication strategies, including simplified language, clear articulation, repetition, and rephrasing, to address comprehension difficulties. Nonverbal approaches, such as maintaining eye contact, using appropriate gestures, and active listening, are equally critical in fostering trust and promoting therapeutic relationships. By tailoring communication to the unique needs of cognitively impaired individuals, healthcare professionals can enhance patient engagement, improve decision-making, and ensure dignified care. This review underscores the necessity of integrating effective communication techniques into healthcare practices and emphasizes ongoing training for professionals to meet the challenges posed by the growing prevalence of cognitive impairments. These strategies are essential to improving patient outcomes and advancing the quality of geriatric care.

An experimental study on familiarity, contextual factors and representation forms in human-product interaction

ABSTRACT Achieving reliable user feedback during design is essential for developing products that meet customer needs, but this is challenging due to limited attention to key aspects of user interaction with new products. This paper examines overlooked factors influencing product evaluations at various design stages, focusing on familiarity, contextual information, forms of representation, and visual behavior through a three-study experimental activity (N = 77). Study 1 explored the impact of contextual cues on perception and comprehension of product functions using three unfamiliar products, comparing conditions with and without contextual cues. Study 2 assessed how contextual detail and product familiarity affect function comprehension by tracking visual behavior as participants viewed product images with different backgrounds using remote eye-tracking. Study 3 examined the effects of familiarity and representation detail on evaluation and function understanding by having participants assess digital models, physical prototypes, and end-use products. Results show that contextual cues are crucial for understanding unfamiliar product functions, influencing cognitive and, to a lesser extent, affective aspects. Detailed backgrounds aid function identification, especially with moderately familiar products, with prolonged background observation indicating difficulty in function comprehension. Higher product specification from virtual to physical forms enhances function identification and evaluation, though this effect is lessened by unfamiliarity.

Reading comprehension difficulties in Standard Six: Insights from public primary schools in Kongwa District, Tanzania

The study sought to understand the reading comprehension issue among pupils at Standard Six public primary school in Kongwa District, Tanzania. The researcher used a mixed-methods research approach. A convergent parallel design was used in the study, where data was collected using questionnaires and interviews. There were 262 respondents, of whom 252 were pupils selected using simple random sampling. In addition to the pupils, ten English teachers were purposively selected to provide information through interviews. Quantitative data was computed using SPSS software version 26 to establish frequencies and percentages, while qualitative data was analyzed through thematic analysis. The result indicated that most of the pupils struggle with understanding the main ideas, summarizing, and reading English books, hence resulting in their problems with reading comprehension. Most of the pupils complained of needing help from teachers or fellow pupils to comprehend English texts and used to read passages repeatedly to comprehend them. Based on these findings, the study commented that interactive learning strategies such as group reading should be utilized to enhance reading comprehension among pupils. The training of teachers in proper interactive strategies can boost their ability to assist pupils in acquiring reading comprehension. The distribution of enough reading materials is also advised because it may result in consistent reading practice and eventually promote pupils' comprehension and reading abilities.

An Intervention-Study on Moroccan High Schoolers’ Difficulty in Comprehending Newly Encountered Vocabulary

Vocabulary knowledge is an essential component in language acquisition and learning. Such knowledge facilitates the reception, processing, and production of discourse. When the ‘know-what’ is hindered, learning is not achieved. The present study is conducted to arm EFL learners with ‘know-how’ strategies to decipher the meaning of newly encountered vocabulary. It is the result of attested observations that students’ comprehension and learning are hindered when they do not comprehend a word. Problems persist more when students do reading comprehension, grammar, or communication tasks. The purpose is to enable students with strategies to work out meaning and test the possibility of having those strategies become automated in the students’ cognition. For this, the researcher has adopted a quantitative approach to check the rate of students’ success at deciphering meaning. The study has three stages: pre-intervention, while-intervention, and post-intervention. The first stage is conducted to attest observations concerning students’ comprehension difficulties. Here, the researcher provides a short paragraph with at least 10 difficult words and asks students to clarify them. The while-intervention stage consists of delivering a lesson with a learning objective of training students to use 6 meaning-deciphering strategies adapted from Schmitt’s (1997) and Nation’s (2001) taxonomies. The post-intervention is a complementary step to check the validity and success of the intervention. As the sessions proceed, learners show success in independent meaning-deciphering using an automated approach. This study shows that learners should be helped not by providing ready information but by equipping them with ‘learning how-to-learn’ strategies.

Interference of Implicit Causality in Relative Clause Processing.

Differences in the processing of subject and object relative clauses have been explained by a combination of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic factors, such as a general subject advantage based on syntactic constraints, effects of animacy, and the discourse status of relative clause internal subjects. In this paper, we will focus on a factor related to verb meaning, the implicit causality of the verb, which biases the principal causer of the event described by the verb. Depending on whether the bias is on the subject or the object, implicit causality can conflict with the foregrounded antecedent of the relative clause, leading to increased difficulty in comprehension. We tested this hypothesis by manipulating implicit causality in subject and object relative clauses. We used both offline (acceptability judgment task) and online (self-paced reading task) methods to observe at which stage of processing implicit causality influences comprehension. Our findings from acceptability judgments showed that object relative clauses with subject-biased verbs were the least acceptable and the least understood. Conversely, object relative clauses with object-biased verbs were as acceptable and easy to understand as subject relative clauses in French. However, results from self-paced reading indicated that subject-biased verbs were more difficult to process regardless of the construction, suggesting that the integration of implicit causality occurs at a later level of processing, such as in acceptability judgments and comprehension questions. Further acceptability judgment tasks suggested that implicit causality influences relative clause acceptability beyond word order and thematic roles. We propose linking the role of implicit causality with the function of a restrictive relative clause and introduce the Aboutness Hypothesis to explain relative clause processing: a relative clause is more acceptable and easier to understand when everything contributes to making the head its optimal aboutness topic.

Aging Impacts Basic Auditory and Timing Processes.

Deterioration in the peripheral and central auditory systems is common in older adults and often leads to hearing and speech comprehension difficulties. Even when hearing remains intact, electrophysiological data of older adults frequently exhibit altered neural responses along the auditory pathway, reflected in variability in phase alignment of neural activity to speech sound onsets. However, it remains unclear whether challenges in speech processing in aging stem from more fundamental deficits in auditory and timing processes. Here, we investigated if and how aging individuals encoded temporal regularities in isochronous auditory sequences presented at 1.5Hz, and if they employed adaptive mechanisms of neural phase alignment in anticipation of next sound onsets. We recorded EEG in older and young individuals listening to simple isochronous tone sequences. We show that aging individuals displayed larger event-related neural responses, an increased 1/F slope, but reduced phase-coherence at the stimulation frequency (1.5Hz) and a reduced slope of phase-coherence over time in the delta and theta frequency-bands. These observations suggest altered top-down modulatory inhibition when processing repeated and predictable sounds in a sequence and altered mechanisms of continuous phase-alignment to expected sound onsets in aging. Given that deteriorations in these basic timing capacities may affect other higher-order cognitive processes (e.g., attention, perception, and action), these results underscore the need for future research examining the link between basic timing abilities and general cognition across the lifespan.

Determinants of refugee children’s language comprehension difficulties: Evidence from Lebanon, Türkiye and Australia

Abstract This article examines the determinants of Syrian refugee students’ language comprehension difficulties in Lebanon, Türkiye and Australia, three host countries offering refugees different types of legal status (short-term, medium-term and long-term legal settlement). To understand the influence of legal status and its corresponding educational paradigm on the difficulties refugee children encounter when learning in a foreign language, the authors employed a mixed-methods comparative approach. Investigating the micro, meso and macro dimensions that shape refugee children’s language comprehension difficulties, the authors surveyed 945 (52% female, 48%male) middle school refugee students and interviewed parents, teachers and principals. Their quantitative findings highlight the significance of the length of time spent in the host country and the role of school segregation in mitigating language comprehension difficulties. The qualitative findings of this study reveal the importance of language provision and residency conditions, which are shaped by macro-level policies. The study emphasises the need for a comprehensive and holistic approach that addresses distinct dimensions of refugees’ livelihoods in order to surmount the challenges refugee children face when studying in a foreign language.

Using Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs): Preliminary Evidence on Memory and Comprehension Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental condition involving persistent challenges with social communication, as well as memory and language comprehension difficulties. This study investigated the effects of a storytelling paradigm on language comprehension and memory skills in children with ASD. A traditional approach, using an illustrated book to deliver the narrative, was compared to a novel paradigm based on Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) combined with multisensory stimulation. A group of 28 children (ages between 6 and 10 years old) was asked to listen to a story over four weeks, two times a week, in two different experimental conditions. The experimental group (n =14) engaged with the story using TUIs, while the control group (n =14) interacted with a corresponding illustrated book. Pre- and post-intervention assessments were conducted using NEPSY-II subtests on language comprehension and memory. At the end of the intervention, a trend of improved performance was found. In particular, a greater number of subjects benefited from the intervention in the experimental group compared with the control group in instruction comprehension and narrative memory-cued recall. These preliminary findings suggest that TUIs may enhance learning outcomes for children with ASD, warranting further investigation into their potential benefits.

From semantic concreteness to concretism in schizophrenia: An automated linguistic analysis of speech produced in figurative language interpretation

ABSTRACT Lack of abstract thinking, known as concretism, is a well-known psychopathological feature of schizophrenia, reflecting the tendency to adhere to concrete aspects of stimuli and figurative language comprehension difficulties. Inspired by the similarity between ‘concretism’ as defined in psychopathology and ‘concreteness’ as defined in linguistics, namely a semantic dimension linked to perceptual experience, we tested the novel hypothesis that impairment in deriving figurative meanings is related to impairment at the semantic level, involving concreteness. We analysed speech samples from 63 individuals with schizophrenia and 47 controls, who were asked to verbalise the meaning of idioms, metaphors, and proverbs. By automatically extracting linguistic features from speech, we observed that answers in the schizophrenia group exhibited higher word concreteness and the related measure of word imageability, especially in proverbs, while not differing from controls’ ones in lexical richness and speech-time composition. Concreteness in verbalisations produced by individuals with schizophrenia negatively predicted their ability to understand proverbs and their global pragmatic and cognitive profile. This study supports the idea that concretism is rooted in semantics, linking the tendency to concrete figurative interpretations and a bias towards concrete words. In this view, impairment in figurative language understanding can be seen as a difficulty in abstracting away from perceptual-related properties associated with linguistic inputs, in the broader context of multisensory integration disruption. The study discloses new areas of interest for the automated analysis of speech in psychosis, pointing to the importance of considering concreteness for better characterising linguistic profiles and identifying clinically relevant linguistic dimensions.

Revisiting processing complexity of nested and cross-serial dependencies

In two web-based experiments, we compare comprehension difficulty between Dutch and German sentences with clusters of two or three verbs. In Dutch, such sentences involve crossing dependencies, whereas these dependencies are nested in German. Replicating the seminal finding of Bach et al. (1986), we find that the crossing (Dutch) structure is easier to comprehend than the nested (German) structure, although we find a different pattern of results in terms of where this difficulty manifests. The results are in line with predictions from the Dependency Locality Theory.

Expecting the unexpected: Examining the interplay between real-world knowledge and contextual cues during language comprehension.

Communication frequently involves discussions about real-world implausible events. Since most prior research used specific contextual cues to indicate a strong bias towards real-world knowledge violations, it remains unclear how real-world and contextual knowledge interact when the context is relatively unconstraining (e.g., dream scenarios), where both plausible and implausible information is supported. We investigated this issue using sentence completion (Experiment 1) and self-paced reading tasks (Experiment 2). Results of Experiment 1 showed that comprehenders were guided by the dream context to expect less plausible information in a general way, but their expectations were still largely constrained by real-world knowledge. Results of Experiment 2 showed that although comprehension in such contexts was initially guided by real-world knowledge, plausible information became more difficult to comprehend than implausible information (e.g., "putting meat and vegetables in the refrigeratorplausible/wardrobeimplausible") at the final regions of the target sentence. Our study is the first to show that context is powerful enough to guide comprehenders towards expecting world knowledge violations even without explicit constraints indicating this bias, which is mainly driven by increased comprehension difficulties for plausible contents rather than decreased difficulties for implausible ones. Importantly, our findings raise new questions about how comprehenders switch from an old situation model to a new one. They also indicate necessary extensions for language comprehension models, highlighting that information unrelated to both real-world and contextual knowledge in any direct way (i.e., information with extremely low cloze probability) can still be ultimately preferred in certain contexts.

Brain functional differences during irony comprehension in adolescents with ASD.

Irony comprehension is challenging for both individuals with ASD and poor comprehenders (PCs). We aimed to examine the common and specific mechanisms underlying irony comprehension difficulty in the two populations. Both adolescents with ASD and PC showed lower performance in irony comprehension than an age-matched typical control group (TD). The ASD group also showed deficits in theory of mind (ToM), while the PC group showed impairments in structural language skills. In the brain, the ASD group showed reduced brain activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) compared to both the TD and the PC group, suggesting ASD-specific differences, which was further found to be correlated with ToM deficits in ASD. Both the TD and the PC group showed greater activation for the ironic than the literal condition in the bilateral medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), but the ASD group did not, suggesting ASD-specific difference in irony comprehension. The PC group showed reduced activation in the right cuneus compared to the TD, which was correlated with the language comprehension score, suggesting different mechanisms than ASD. Our findings provide insights about the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying impaired irony comprehension in ASD and PC.