Bilingualism Effects in Metaphor and Simile Comprehension and Production in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder / Maria ANDREOU in Autism Research, 18-3 (March 2025)  

Public ISBD [article]  inAutism Research > 18-3 (March 2025) . - p.632-647 Titre : Bilingualism Effects in Metaphor and Simile Comprehension and Production in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Maria ANDREOU, Auteur ; Stella LAMPRI, Auteur ; Theodoros MARINIS, Auteur ; Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.632-647 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : autism spectrum disorder  bilingualism  error analysis  executive functions  figurative language  metaphor comprehension  metaphor production  predicate metaphors  simile comprehension  simile production Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : ABSTRACT Figurative language, including metaphors and similes, is a crucial component of communication; yet, it presents significant challenges for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A critical gap in existing research is the impact of bilingualism on the ability of children with ASD to understand and produce non-literal speech. This study addresses this gap by examining the comprehension and production of metaphors and similes in monolingual and bilingual Greek-speaking children with high-functioning ASD. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate these abilities in bilingual children with ASD. Thirty-three monolingual and 18 bilingual children participated in tasks designed to assess comprehension, production, and error patterns for metaphors and similes. The study has also investigated the roles of non-verbal intelligence, language skills (expressive vocabulary), and executive functions (working memory) in the children's performance in the metaphor and simile tasks. Results showed that the two groups did not differ in metaphor comprehension; however, bilingual autistic children with higher non-verbal intelligence appeared to have superior performance in metaphor comprehension compared to their bilingual peers with lower non-verbal intelligence. The bilingual autistic children outperformed their monolingual peers in metaphor production, likely due to their higher non-verbal intelligence ability, despite the fact that the bilingual group had lower expressive vocabulary scores than the monolingual children. Simile comprehension, on the other hand, favored monolingual children, while no significant group differences were observed in simile production. Regarding errors, both groups exhibited similar error patterns, with literal interpretations being the dominant error type across both groups, suggesting that pragmatic language difficulty is a hallmark feature in ASD. The findings challenge the misconception that bilingualism hinders language development in children with ASD and highlight its potential to provide benefits in the realm of non-literal language processing. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.70009 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=550 [article] Bilingualism Effects in Metaphor and Simile Comprehension and Production in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Maria ANDREOU, Auteur ; Stella LAMPRI, Auteur ; Theodoros MARINIS, Auteur ; Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur . - p.632-647. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Autism Research > 18-3 (March 2025) . - p.632-647 Mots-clés : autism spectrum disorder  bilingualism  error analysis  executive functions  figurative language  metaphor comprehension  metaphor production  predicate metaphors  simile comprehension  simile production Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : ABSTRACT Figurative language, including metaphors and similes, is a crucial component of communication; yet, it presents significant challenges for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A critical gap in existing research is the impact of bilingualism on the ability of children with ASD to understand and produce non-literal speech. This study addresses this gap by examining the comprehension and production of metaphors and similes in monolingual and bilingual Greek-speaking children with high-functioning ASD. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate these abilities in bilingual children with ASD. Thirty-three monolingual and 18 bilingual children participated in tasks designed to assess comprehension, production, and error patterns for metaphors and similes. The study has also investigated the roles of non-verbal intelligence, language skills (expressive vocabulary), and executive functions (working memory) in the children's performance in the metaphor and simile tasks. Results showed that the two groups did not differ in metaphor comprehension; however, bilingual autistic children with higher non-verbal intelligence appeared to have superior performance in metaphor comprehension compared to their bilingual peers with lower non-verbal intelligence. The bilingual autistic children outperformed their monolingual peers in metaphor production, likely due to their higher non-verbal intelligence ability, despite the fact that the bilingual group had lower expressive vocabulary scores than the monolingual children. Simile comprehension, on the other hand, favored monolingual children, while no significant group differences were observed in simile production. Regarding errors, both groups exhibited similar error patterns, with literal interpretations being the dominant error type across both groups, suggesting that pragmatic language difficulty is a hallmark feature in ASD. The findings challenge the misconception that bilingualism hinders language development in children with ASD and highlight its potential to provide benefits in the realm of non-literal language processing. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.70009 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=550

Cognitive flexibility in autism: Evidence from young autistic children / Maria ANDREOU in Autism Research, 15-12 (December 2022)  

Public ISBD [article]  inAutism Research > 15-12 (December 2022) . - p.2296-2309 Titre : Cognitive flexibility in autism: Evidence from young autistic children Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Maria ANDREOU, Auteur ; Kostas KONSTANTOPOULOS, Auteur ; Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.2296-2309 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Child  Humans  Autistic Disorder/complications  Autism Spectrum Disorder/complications  Semantics  Language  Cognition  autism  children's color trails test  cognitive flexibility  fluency Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : We examined the cognitive flexibility performance of young autistic children and a group of neurotypical peers. Thirty-six autistic children (72-83 months) and 200 age-matched typically-developing children were assessed on the Children's Color Trails Test (CCTT), a semantic and a phonemic verbal fluency task. The results showed that the autistic children performed worse than their neurotypical peers in the switching component of the CCTT. In the fluency tests, the autistic group generated overall fewer word items than their neurotypical peers, however, their poorer performance was driven by specific linguistic stimuli in the fluency tasks. The findings suggest that cognitive flexibility for the autistic children was affected in the nonverbal CCTT only, while poor performance in semantic and phonemic fluency seemed to be inherent to the language properties of the verbal fluency tasks. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aur.2828 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=488 [article] Cognitive flexibility in autism: Evidence from young autistic children [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Maria ANDREOU, Auteur ; Kostas KONSTANTOPOULOS, Auteur ; Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur . - p.2296-2309. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Autism Research > 15-12 (December 2022) . - p.2296-2309 Mots-clés : Child  Humans  Autistic Disorder/complications  Autism Spectrum Disorder/complications  Semantics  Language  Cognition  autism  children's color trails test  cognitive flexibility  fluency Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : We examined the cognitive flexibility performance of young autistic children and a group of neurotypical peers. Thirty-six autistic children (72-83 months) and 200 age-matched typically-developing children were assessed on the Children's Color Trails Test (CCTT), a semantic and a phonemic verbal fluency task. The results showed that the autistic children performed worse than their neurotypical peers in the switching component of the CCTT. In the fluency tests, the autistic group generated overall fewer word items than their neurotypical peers, however, their poorer performance was driven by specific linguistic stimuli in the fluency tasks. The findings suggest that cognitive flexibility for the autistic children was affected in the nonverbal CCTT only, while poor performance in semantic and phonemic fluency seemed to be inherent to the language properties of the verbal fluency tasks. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aur.2828 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=488

Figurative language processing in autism spectrum disorders: A review / Stella LAMPRI in Autism Research, 17-4 (April 2024)  

Public ISBD [article]  inAutism Research > 17-4 (April 2024) . - p.674-689 Titre : Figurative language processing in autism spectrum disorders: A review Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Stella LAMPRI, Auteur ; Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Theodoros MARINIS, Auteur ; Maria ANDREOU, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.674-689 Langues : Anglais (eng) Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Abstract Impairments in the broader domain of pragmatics are considered to be a defining feature of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). A challenging aspect of pragmatic competence is the ability to process nonliteral language. Interestingly, previous studies in figurative language comprehension in ASD have demonstrated conflicting results regarding participants' performance. The main scientific debate focuses on the underlying skills which facilitate processing of nonliteral speech in ASD. Namely, Theory of Mind (ToM), language abilities and Executive functions (EFs) are regarded as factors affecting autistic individuals' performance. This review addresses figurative language comprehension in ASD in light of the above three interpretive accounts. We reviewed data from recent studies in this field concluding that autistic children indeed encounter systematic difficulties in the processing of non-literal language. Moreover, only ToM and verbal skills were found to correlate the most with figurative language comprehension in ASD. Notably, we found that differences related to research methodology and tasks' properties may have led to discrepancies between studies' results. Finally, we argue that future studies should encompass in their experimental design figurative comprehension tasks with minimal linguistic demands and also measures of ToM, verbal ability and EFs in order to shed more light in the independent contribution of those skills to the processing of nonliteral language in ASD. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.3069 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=526 [article] Figurative language processing in autism spectrum disorders: A review [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Stella LAMPRI, Auteur ; Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Theodoros MARINIS, Auteur ; Maria ANDREOU, Auteur . - p.674-689. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Autism Research > 17-4 (April 2024) . - p.674-689 Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Abstract Impairments in the broader domain of pragmatics are considered to be a defining feature of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). A challenging aspect of pragmatic competence is the ability to process nonliteral language. Interestingly, previous studies in figurative language comprehension in ASD have demonstrated conflicting results regarding participants' performance. The main scientific debate focuses on the underlying skills which facilitate processing of nonliteral speech in ASD. Namely, Theory of Mind (ToM), language abilities and Executive functions (EFs) are regarded as factors affecting autistic individuals' performance. This review addresses figurative language comprehension in ASD in light of the above three interpretive accounts. We reviewed data from recent studies in this field concluding that autistic children indeed encounter systematic difficulties in the processing of non-literal language. Moreover, only ToM and verbal skills were found to correlate the most with figurative language comprehension in ASD. Notably, we found that differences related to research methodology and tasks' properties may have led to discrepancies between studies' results. Finally, we argue that future studies should encompass in their experimental design figurative comprehension tasks with minimal linguistic demands and also measures of ToM, verbal ability and EFs in order to shed more light in the independent contribution of those skills to the processing of nonliteral language in ASD. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.3069 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=526

Intellectual development in young children with autism spectrum disorders: A longitudinal study / Eleni PERISTERI in Autism Research, 17-3 (March 2024)  

Public ISBD [article]  inAutism Research > 17-3 (March 2024) . - p.543-554 Titre : Intellectual development in young children with autism spectrum disorders: A longitudinal study Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Maria ANDREOU, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.543-554 Langues : Anglais (eng) Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Abstract Intelligence profiles in autism have been characterized by great variability. The questions of how autistic children's intelligence changes over time, and what factors influence these changes deserve study as part of efforts to document child autism profiles, but also because the relationship between intellectual functioning and children's background characteristics is poorly understood, particularly in a longitudinal context. A total of 39 autistic children and 39 age-matched neurotypical children (5-9?years old) completed two IQ assessments at preschool age and up to 4?years later. Repeated-measures analyses assessed longitudinal changes in the children's verbal (VIQ), performance (PIQ), and full-scale IQ (FSIQ) at group level. We further sought to identify clusters with distinct profiles in each group by adopting an unsupervised K-means clustering approach, and detect possible between-subgroup differences in terms of children's socioeconomic status and autism severity. The largest cluster in the autistic group was composed of children whose PIQ significantly dropped at follow-up, while the second largest cluster improved in all quotients; the smallest cluster, wherein children had more highly educated mothers than the rest of the clusters, was characterized by large improvement in VIQ. For the neurotypical children, there was a two-cluster division; the majority of them improved in the three quotients, while very few dropped in PIQ at follow-up. The relation between socioeconomic status and IQ changes was significant for both groups. The findings demonstrate both the complexity of intelligence changes in autism and the need to view this complexity through the lens of the children's socioeconomic diversity. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.3089 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=525 [article] Intellectual development in young children with autism spectrum disorders: A longitudinal study [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Maria ANDREOU, Auteur . - p.543-554. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Autism Research > 17-3 (March 2024) . - p.543-554 Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Abstract Intelligence profiles in autism have been characterized by great variability. The questions of how autistic children's intelligence changes over time, and what factors influence these changes deserve study as part of efforts to document child autism profiles, but also because the relationship between intellectual functioning and children's background characteristics is poorly understood, particularly in a longitudinal context. A total of 39 autistic children and 39 age-matched neurotypical children (5-9?years old) completed two IQ assessments at preschool age and up to 4?years later. Repeated-measures analyses assessed longitudinal changes in the children's verbal (VIQ), performance (PIQ), and full-scale IQ (FSIQ) at group level. We further sought to identify clusters with distinct profiles in each group by adopting an unsupervised K-means clustering approach, and detect possible between-subgroup differences in terms of children's socioeconomic status and autism severity. The largest cluster in the autistic group was composed of children whose PIQ significantly dropped at follow-up, while the second largest cluster improved in all quotients; the smallest cluster, wherein children had more highly educated mothers than the rest of the clusters, was characterized by large improvement in VIQ. For the neurotypical children, there was a two-cluster division; the majority of them improved in the three quotients, while very few dropped in PIQ at follow-up. The relation between socioeconomic status and IQ changes was significant for both groups. The findings demonstrate both the complexity of intelligence changes in autism and the need to view this complexity through the lens of the children's socioeconomic diversity. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.3089 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=525

Metaphor comprehension and production in verbally able children with Autism Spectrum Disorder / Stella LAMPRI in Autism Research, 17-11 (November 2024)  

Public ISBD [article]  inAutism Research > 17-11 (November 2024) . - p.2292-2304 Titre : Metaphor comprehension and production in verbally able children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Stella LAMPRI, Auteur ; Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Theodoros MARINIS, Auteur ; Maria ANDREOU, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.2292-2304 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Autism Spectrum Disorder  error analysis  executive functions  figurative language  language skills  metaphor production  pragmatics  predicate metaphors Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Abstract Research in the field of figurative language processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has demonstrated that autistic individuals experience systematic difficulties in the comprehension of different types of metaphors. However, there is scarce evidence regarding metaphor production skills in ASD. Importantly, the exact source of metaphor processing difficulties in ASD remains largely controversial. The debate has mainly focused on the mediating role of structural language skills (i.e., lexical knowledge) and cognitive abilities (i.e., Theory of Mind and executive functions) in ASD individuals' ability to comprehend and generate metaphors. The present study examines metaphor comprehension and production in 18 Greek-speaking verbally able children with ASD and 31 typically-developing (TD) controls. Participants completed two tasks, namely, a low-verbal multiple-choice sentence-picture matching task that tested their ability to comprehend conventional predicate metaphors, and a sentence continuation task that assessed their ability to generate metaphors. The study also included measures of fluid intelligence, expressive vocabulary, and working memory within the sample. The results show that the ASD group had significantly lower performance than the TD group in both metaphor comprehension and production. The findings also reveal that expressive vocabulary skills were a key factor in the metaphor comprehension and production performance of the children with ASD. Working memory capacity was also found to correlate significantly with metaphor comprehension performance in the ASD group. Conversely, no correlations were found in the TD group with neither of the above factors. Of note, children with ASD generated significantly more inappropriate responses and no-responses to the metaphor production task compared with the control group. The overall results reveal that children with ASD had difficulty with both comprehending and using metaphorical language. The findings also indicate that TD children may employ diverse cognitive strategies or rely on different underlying skills when processing metaphors compared with children with ASD. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.3210 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=542 [article] Metaphor comprehension and production in verbally able children with Autism Spectrum Disorder [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Stella LAMPRI, Auteur ; Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Theodoros MARINIS, Auteur ; Maria ANDREOU, Auteur . - p.2292-2304. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Autism Research > 17-11 (November 2024) . - p.2292-2304 Mots-clés : Autism Spectrum Disorder  error analysis  executive functions  figurative language  language skills  metaphor production  pragmatics  predicate metaphors Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Abstract Research in the field of figurative language processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has demonstrated that autistic individuals experience systematic difficulties in the comprehension of different types of metaphors. However, there is scarce evidence regarding metaphor production skills in ASD. Importantly, the exact source of metaphor processing difficulties in ASD remains largely controversial. The debate has mainly focused on the mediating role of structural language skills (i.e., lexical knowledge) and cognitive abilities (i.e., Theory of Mind and executive functions) in ASD individuals' ability to comprehend and generate metaphors. The present study examines metaphor comprehension and production in 18 Greek-speaking verbally able children with ASD and 31 typically-developing (TD) controls. Participants completed two tasks, namely, a low-verbal multiple-choice sentence-picture matching task that tested their ability to comprehend conventional predicate metaphors, and a sentence continuation task that assessed their ability to generate metaphors. The study also included measures of fluid intelligence, expressive vocabulary, and working memory within the sample. The results show that the ASD group had significantly lower performance than the TD group in both metaphor comprehension and production. The findings also reveal that expressive vocabulary skills were a key factor in the metaphor comprehension and production performance of the children with ASD. Working memory capacity was also found to correlate significantly with metaphor comprehension performance in the ASD group. Conversely, no correlations were found in the TD group with neither of the above factors. Of note, children with ASD generated significantly more inappropriate responses and no-responses to the metaphor production task compared with the control group. The overall results reveal that children with ASD had difficulty with both comprehending and using metaphorical language. The findings also indicate that TD children may employ diverse cognitive strategies or rely on different underlying skills when processing metaphors compared with children with ASD. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.3210 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=542

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