Autistic children’s reading comprehension revisited through eye-tracking: Evidence from bridging inferencing / Eleni PERISTERI in Research in Autism, 128 (October 2025)  

Public ISBD [article]  inResearch in Autism > 128 (October 2025) . - p.202721 Titre : Autistic children’s reading comprehension revisited through eye-tracking: Evidence from bridging inferencing Type de document : texte imprimé Auteurs : Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Michaela NERANTZINI, Auteur ; Timothy C. PAPADOPOULOS, Auteur ; Spyridoula VARLOKOSTA, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.202721 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Autism spectrum disorders  Bridging inferencing  Reading  Eye-tracking  Executive functions Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Pragmatic language impairments are universally observed in Autism Spectrum Disorders. Inferencing, i.e., combining information within text and using background knowledge to go beyond what is explicitly stated in the text to make a conjecture, has been a challenging pragmatic domain for autistic children. Most studies that have investigated inferencing in autism have used behavioral measurements. The objective of the current study was to assess inferencing in autistic and age-matched typically-developing children by employing eye-tracking to capture children’s ‘in-the-moment’ eye gaze behaviors while reading short passages. We also investigated links between children’s inferencing and executive function skills. The study included 19 autistic children and 19 age-matched typically-developing children. Groups were administered an eye-tracking task that assessed children’s inferencing skills while reading short vignettes that differed in a critical word that supported inferencing or not. Children were asked to read the vignettes and then answer questions that were either primed or not by the inference. The two groups were also assessed on executive functions, including working memory and attention. We found that autistic children exhibited lower comprehension accuracy in passages not primed by inferencing as compared to those that were primed, and also spent more looking time on primed passages than the typically-developing children. Moreover, while inferencing in typically-developing children was significantly related to their executive function skills, no such relations were observed for the autistic group. The overall findings show that reading comprehension for the autistic children was reduced when questions did not anchor to previous discourse through bridging inferencing. Finally, inferencing in the autistic group did not rely on executive functions to the same extent as in typically-developing children. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reia.2025.202721 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=570 [article] Autistic children’s reading comprehension revisited through eye-tracking: Evidence from bridging inferencing [texte imprimé] / Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Michaela NERANTZINI, Auteur ; Timothy C. PAPADOPOULOS, Auteur ; Spyridoula VARLOKOSTA, Auteur . - p.202721. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Research in Autism > 128 (October 2025) . - p.202721 Mots-clés : Autism spectrum disorders  Bridging inferencing  Reading  Eye-tracking  Executive functions Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Pragmatic language impairments are universally observed in Autism Spectrum Disorders. Inferencing, i.e., combining information within text and using background knowledge to go beyond what is explicitly stated in the text to make a conjecture, has been a challenging pragmatic domain for autistic children. Most studies that have investigated inferencing in autism have used behavioral measurements. The objective of the current study was to assess inferencing in autistic and age-matched typically-developing children by employing eye-tracking to capture children’s ‘in-the-moment’ eye gaze behaviors while reading short passages. We also investigated links between children’s inferencing and executive function skills. The study included 19 autistic children and 19 age-matched typically-developing children. Groups were administered an eye-tracking task that assessed children’s inferencing skills while reading short vignettes that differed in a critical word that supported inferencing or not. Children were asked to read the vignettes and then answer questions that were either primed or not by the inference. The two groups were also assessed on executive functions, including working memory and attention. We found that autistic children exhibited lower comprehension accuracy in passages not primed by inferencing as compared to those that were primed, and also spent more looking time on primed passages than the typically-developing children. Moreover, while inferencing in typically-developing children was significantly related to their executive function skills, no such relations were observed for the autistic group. The overall findings show that reading comprehension for the autistic children was reduced when questions did not anchor to previous discourse through bridging inferencing. Finally, inferencing in the autistic group did not rely on executive functions to the same extent as in typically-developing children. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reia.2025.202721 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=570

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 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] / 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

Bilingualism effects in pronoun comprehension: Evidence from children with autism / Vasileia SKRIMPA in Autism Research, 15-2 (February 2022)  

Public ISBD [article]  inAutism Research > 15-2 (February 2022) . - p.270-283 Titre : Bilingualism effects in pronoun comprehension: Evidence from children with autism Type de document : texte imprimé Auteurs : Vasileia SKRIMPA, Auteur ; Vasilina SPANOU, Auteur ; Christiane BONGARTZ, Auteur ; Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Maria ANDREOU, Auteur ; Despina PAPADOPOULOU, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.270-283 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : autism spectrum disorder  bilingualism  language deficits  pronoun resolution Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : The prevalence of autism worldwide has risen steadily in the last two decades, while bilingualism is also becoming increasingly prevalent in today's rapidly globalizing world. The current study aimed to investigate bilingualism effects in the pronoun resolution skills of children with autism in comparison to age-matched monolingual children with autism, as well as monolingual and bilingual children of typical development (Ν = 20 participants per group). Results showed that autistic children had general difficulty anchoring ambiguous pronouns to entities that were linguistically expressed in discourse, yet, the bilingual children with autism were more sensitive to the topicality of the entities in syntactic subject position and more prone to identify them as suitable referents of ambiguous null pronouns as compared to their monolingual peers. The findings suggest that bilingualism is not detrimental to autistic children's pronoun resolution skills. The current study aimed at determining how bilingualism influences ambiguous pronoun comprehension in children with autism as compared to bilingual and monolingual children of typical development. The findings show that bilingualism was not detrimental to the autistic children's pronoun resolution skills, further suggesting that having acquired more than one language does not exacerbate autistic children's deficits in the comprehension of pronouns. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aur.2634 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=450 [article] Bilingualism effects in pronoun comprehension: Evidence from children with autism [texte imprimé] / Vasileia SKRIMPA, Auteur ; Vasilina SPANOU, Auteur ; Christiane BONGARTZ, Auteur ; Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Maria ANDREOU, Auteur ; Despina PAPADOPOULOU, Auteur . - p.270-283. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Autism Research > 15-2 (February 2022) . - p.270-283 Mots-clés : autism spectrum disorder  bilingualism  language deficits  pronoun resolution Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : The prevalence of autism worldwide has risen steadily in the last two decades, while bilingualism is also becoming increasingly prevalent in today's rapidly globalizing world. The current study aimed to investigate bilingualism effects in the pronoun resolution skills of children with autism in comparison to age-matched monolingual children with autism, as well as monolingual and bilingual children of typical development (Ν = 20 participants per group). Results showed that autistic children had general difficulty anchoring ambiguous pronouns to entities that were linguistically expressed in discourse, yet, the bilingual children with autism were more sensitive to the topicality of the entities in syntactic subject position and more prone to identify them as suitable referents of ambiguous null pronouns as compared to their monolingual peers. The findings suggest that bilingualism is not detrimental to autistic children's pronoun resolution skills. The current study aimed at determining how bilingualism influences ambiguous pronoun comprehension in children with autism as compared to bilingual and monolingual children of typical development. The findings show that bilingualism was not detrimental to the autistic children's pronoun resolution skills, further suggesting that having acquired more than one language does not exacerbate autistic children's deficits in the comprehension of pronouns. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aur.2634 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=450

Bilingualism effects on cognition in autistic children are not all-or-nothing: The role of socioeconomic status in intellectual skills in bilingual autistic children / Eleni PERISTERI in Autism, 26-8 (November 2022)  

Public ISBD [article]  inAutism > 26-8 (November 2022) . - p.2084-2097 Titre : Bilingualism effects on cognition in autistic children are not all-or-nothing: The role of socioeconomic status in intellectual skills in bilingual autistic children Type de document : texte imprimé Auteurs : Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Silvia SILLERESI, Auteur ; Ianthi Maria TSIMPLI, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.2084-2097 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Child  Humans  Multilingualism  Autistic Disorder  Autism Spectrum Disorder  Cognition  Social Class  Autism spectrum disorders  environmental factors  intellectual measurement  school-age children Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Previous research has suggested that bilingualism may improve cognition in children with autism, and that this boost may stem from improvement in executive functions. The Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children are considered to be reliable and valid measures of intelligence when administered to autistic children. These measures have so far revealed unusual psychometric properties in monolingual autistic children, notably distinctive patterns of strengths and weaknesses and low inter-correlation among verbal and nonverbal IQ subtests. The way bilingualism affects the intellectual functioning of autistic children has not been explored yet. Nor has there been a satisfactory factor structure that explains monolingual and bilingual autistic children's IQ performance in terms of individual factors, such as age and socioeconomic status. The current study examined the intelligence profiles of 316 bilingual and age- and gender-matched monolingual children with autism using the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children-Third Edition. The study applied clustering models to extract intelligence subtypes of autism, and mediation analyses to examine potential mediation effects of age and socioeconomic status on the children's verbal and nonverbal IQ performance. The results support the mediational role of the children's socioeconomic status in the association between bilingualism and intelligence. Low-socioeconomic status bilingual autistic children outperformed their monolingual peers on both verbal and nonverbal subtests, while the differences faded in medium-socioeconomic status and high-socioeconomic status children. The findings emphasize the positive effects of bilingualism on low-socioeconomic status autistic children's intelligence and also highlight high-socioeconomic status as a factor that may mitigate discrepant patterns of strengths and weaknesses in monolingual children's IQ performance. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13623613221075097 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=488 [article] Bilingualism effects on cognition in autistic children are not all-or-nothing: The role of socioeconomic status in intellectual skills in bilingual autistic children [texte imprimé] / Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Silvia SILLERESI, Auteur ; Ianthi Maria TSIMPLI, Auteur . - p.2084-2097. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Autism > 26-8 (November 2022) . - p.2084-2097 Mots-clés : Child  Humans  Multilingualism  Autistic Disorder  Autism Spectrum Disorder  Cognition  Social Class  Autism spectrum disorders  environmental factors  intellectual measurement  school-age children Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Previous research has suggested that bilingualism may improve cognition in children with autism, and that this boost may stem from improvement in executive functions. The Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children are considered to be reliable and valid measures of intelligence when administered to autistic children. These measures have so far revealed unusual psychometric properties in monolingual autistic children, notably distinctive patterns of strengths and weaknesses and low inter-correlation among verbal and nonverbal IQ subtests. The way bilingualism affects the intellectual functioning of autistic children has not been explored yet. Nor has there been a satisfactory factor structure that explains monolingual and bilingual autistic children's IQ performance in terms of individual factors, such as age and socioeconomic status. The current study examined the intelligence profiles of 316 bilingual and age- and gender-matched monolingual children with autism using the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children-Third Edition. The study applied clustering models to extract intelligence subtypes of autism, and mediation analyses to examine potential mediation effects of age and socioeconomic status on the children's verbal and nonverbal IQ performance. The results support the mediational role of the children's socioeconomic status in the association between bilingualism and intelligence. Low-socioeconomic status bilingual autistic children outperformed their monolingual peers on both verbal and nonverbal subtests, while the differences faded in medium-socioeconomic status and high-socioeconomic status children. The findings emphasize the positive effects of bilingualism on low-socioeconomic status autistic children's intelligence and also highlight high-socioeconomic status as a factor that may mitigate discrepant patterns of strengths and weaknesses in monolingual children's IQ performance. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13623613221075097 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=488

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 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] / 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)  

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

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

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The Acquisition of Relative Clauses in Autism: The Role of Executive Functions and Language / Eleni PERISTERI in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 54-12 (December 2024)  

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The cognitive benefits of bilingualism in autism spectrum disorder: Is theory of mind boosted and by which underlying factors? / Eleni PERISTERI in Autism Research, 14-8 (August 2021)  

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