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

Garden path processing in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Evidence from eye-tracking / Michaela NERANTZINI in Research in Autism, 136 (August 2026)  

Public ISBD [article]  inResearch in Autism > 136 (August 2026) . - 202968 Titre : Garden path processing in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Evidence from eye-tracking Type de document : texte imprimé Auteurs : Michaela NERANTZINI, Auteur ; Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Stavroula ALEXANDROPOULOU, Auteur ; Spyridoula VARLOKOSTA, Auteur Article en page(s) : 202968 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Autism Spectrum Disorders  Garden path sentences  Eye-tracking  Reading  Executive functions Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Though comprehenders use thematic fit to predict upcoming materials in discourse, the processor does not always select a felicitous parsing pathway. Syntactic processing models claim that multiple parses compete for selection at points of incremental ambiguity, and early parsing decisions often need to be overridden by engaging executive functions. Though previous studies investigated lexical and pronominal ambiguity in Autism Spectrum Disorders, there is a dearth of research on garden path sentence processing in autism. The objective of this study was to assess garden path sentence processing in autistic and age-matched typically-developing (TD) children by employing an eye-tracking-while-reading task. The task included sentences with temporary subject-object ambiguity stemming from either case syncretism or overt case marking of determiner phrases following optionally transitive verbs. Children’s executive functions were also assessed to investigate interactions between cognitive control and garden path resolution skills. We found that the autistic children experienced larger costs than their TD peers in integrating overt case cues in garden path sentences. These costs were mainly reflected in the autistic children’s significantly longer dwell time and more fixations in the determiner of the critical DPs. Also, autistic children’s garden path repair processes were modulated by their executive functions not before the wrap-up of the sentences, which is indicative of delayed cognitive control adjustment. The overall findings show that structural ambiguity resolution was more challenging for the autistic children, and that this weakness stemmed from cognitive control deficits and difficulty with the mapping of morphological cues to argument features, rather than competing syntactic representations per se. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reia.2026.202968 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=592 [article] Garden path processing in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Evidence from eye-tracking [texte imprimé] / Michaela NERANTZINI, Auteur ; Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Stavroula ALEXANDROPOULOU, Auteur ; Spyridoula VARLOKOSTA, Auteur . - 202968. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Research in Autism > 136 (August 2026) . - 202968 Mots-clés : Autism Spectrum Disorders  Garden path sentences  Eye-tracking  Reading  Executive functions Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Though comprehenders use thematic fit to predict upcoming materials in discourse, the processor does not always select a felicitous parsing pathway. Syntactic processing models claim that multiple parses compete for selection at points of incremental ambiguity, and early parsing decisions often need to be overridden by engaging executive functions. Though previous studies investigated lexical and pronominal ambiguity in Autism Spectrum Disorders, there is a dearth of research on garden path sentence processing in autism. The objective of this study was to assess garden path sentence processing in autistic and age-matched typically-developing (TD) children by employing an eye-tracking-while-reading task. The task included sentences with temporary subject-object ambiguity stemming from either case syncretism or overt case marking of determiner phrases following optionally transitive verbs. Children’s executive functions were also assessed to investigate interactions between cognitive control and garden path resolution skills. We found that the autistic children experienced larger costs than their TD peers in integrating overt case cues in garden path sentences. These costs were mainly reflected in the autistic children’s significantly longer dwell time and more fixations in the determiner of the critical DPs. Also, autistic children’s garden path repair processes were modulated by their executive functions not before the wrap-up of the sentences, which is indicative of delayed cognitive control adjustment. The overall findings show that structural ambiguity resolution was more challenging for the autistic children, and that this weakness stemmed from cognitive control deficits and difficulty with the mapping of morphological cues to argument features, rather than competing syntactic representations per se. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reia.2026.202968 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=592

What Silent Pauses Can 'Tell' Us About the Storytelling Skills of Autistic Children: Relations Between Pausing, Language Skills and Executive Functions / Eleni PERISTERI in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 55-12 (December 2025)  

Public ISBD [article]  inJournal of Autism and Developmental Disorders > 55-12 (December 2025) . - p.4171-4184 Titre : What Silent Pauses Can 'Tell' Us About the Storytelling Skills of Autistic Children: Relations Between Pausing, Language Skills and Executive Functions Type de document : texte imprimé Auteurs : Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Katerina DRAKOULAKI, Auteur ; Antonia BOZNOU, Auteur ; Michaela NERANTZINI, Auteur ; Angeliki GENA, Auteur ; Angelos LENGERIS, Auteur ; Spyridoula VARLOKOSTA, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.4171-4184 Langues : Anglais (eng) Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Silent pauses may serve communicative purposes such as demarcating boundaries between discourse units in language production. Previous research has shown that autistic children differ in their pausing behavior from typically-developing (TD) peers, however, the factors behind this difference remain underexplored. The current study was aimed at comparing the use of silent pauses in the narrative production of autistic children and age-matched TD children, and also to identify possible relations between pausing behavior and the children’s language and executive function abilities. According to the study’s findings, the autistic children did not differ from their TD peers in the use of grammatical pauses, however, the former tended to produce significantly less syntactically complex narratives than the TD group, which increased the likelihood that the autistic group would pause appropriately at phrasal boundaries. Though we have found low rates of ungrammatical silent pauses and omitted pauses in obligatory discourse contexts across both groups, autistic children with lower cognitive flexibility tended to use more ungrammatical pauses than their peers with higher cognitive flexibility scores. Also, the autistic group tended to omit obligatory silent pauses more often as their narration became more complex. The results demonstrate that syntactic complexity in narrative production modulated autistic children’s pausing behavior, and that structurally simple narrations boosted the autistic group’s appropriate use of grammatical pauses. The overall findings also demonstrate the importance of studying silent pauses in the narrative discourse of autistic children, and also highlight the links between silent pauses and the children’s syntactic and cognitive skills. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-024-06523-y Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=572 [article] What Silent Pauses Can 'Tell' Us About the Storytelling Skills of Autistic Children: Relations Between Pausing, Language Skills and Executive Functions [texte imprimé] / Eleni PERISTERI, Auteur ; Katerina DRAKOULAKI, Auteur ; Antonia BOZNOU, Auteur ; Michaela NERANTZINI, Auteur ; Angeliki GENA, Auteur ; Angelos LENGERIS, Auteur ; Spyridoula VARLOKOSTA, Auteur . - p.4171-4184. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders > 55-12 (December 2025) . - p.4171-4184 Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Silent pauses may serve communicative purposes such as demarcating boundaries between discourse units in language production. Previous research has shown that autistic children differ in their pausing behavior from typically-developing (TD) peers, however, the factors behind this difference remain underexplored. The current study was aimed at comparing the use of silent pauses in the narrative production of autistic children and age-matched TD children, and also to identify possible relations between pausing behavior and the children’s language and executive function abilities. According to the study’s findings, the autistic children did not differ from their TD peers in the use of grammatical pauses, however, the former tended to produce significantly less syntactically complex narratives than the TD group, which increased the likelihood that the autistic group would pause appropriately at phrasal boundaries. Though we have found low rates of ungrammatical silent pauses and omitted pauses in obligatory discourse contexts across both groups, autistic children with lower cognitive flexibility tended to use more ungrammatical pauses than their peers with higher cognitive flexibility scores. Also, the autistic group tended to omit obligatory silent pauses more often as their narration became more complex. The results demonstrate that syntactic complexity in narrative production modulated autistic children’s pausing behavior, and that structurally simple narrations boosted the autistic group’s appropriate use of grammatical pauses. The overall findings also demonstrate the importance of studying silent pauses in the narrative discourse of autistic children, and also highlight the links between silent pauses and the children’s syntactic and cognitive skills. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-024-06523-y Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=572

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