Stage 2 registered report: investigating a preference for certainty in conversation among autistic adults

Abstract

Social communication difficulties are a diagnostic feature in autism. These difficulties are sometimes attributed, at least in part, to impaired ability in making inferences about what other people mean. In this registered report, we tested a competing hypothesis that the communication profile of adults on the autism spectrum can be more strongly characterised by reduced confidence in making inferences in the face of uncertain information. We tested this hypothesis by comparing the performance of 102 autistic and 109 non-autistic adults on a test of implied meaning, using a test of grammaticality judgements as a control task. We hypothesised that autistic adults would report substantially lower confidence, allowing for differences in accuracy, than non-autistic adults on the test of implied meaning compared to the grammaticality test. However, our results did not suggest this. Instead, we found that accuracy and confidence were both reduced to a similar extent on the test of implied meaning in the autistic group compared to the control group, although these were only subtle differences. This pattern of results was specific to inference-making, as the autistic and non-autistic groups did not differ on the grammar test. This supports the idea that specific differences in pragmatic language processing can exist in autism in the absence of core language problems. Importantly, this pattern of results (differences on the test of implied meaning and no differences on the grammar test) was reversed in a group with self-reported reading difficulties, indicating that the differences in inference-making were specific to the autistic group. Lastly, we found relationships between Intolerance of Uncertainty, performance on the test of implied meaning, and self-reported social communication challenges. This supports the idea that discomfort with uncertainty plays a role in the pragmatic language and communication challenges in autism.

Pragmatic Language Impairment: A Scientometric Review

“…Third, by combining bibliometric and scientometric indicators, we could identify the most influential, central, and productive authors in the field. For example, Adams, Bishop, and Lockton have been instrumental in exploring the connections between PLI, autism, and developmental language disorder [61,116,117]. Cummings has made significant contributions to our understanding of pragmatic impairment following COVID-19 [59].…”

Development and validation of the conversation questionnaire: A psychometric measure of communication challenges generated from the self-reports of autistic people

“…After providing informed written consent to participate, individuals were presented with a sequence of questionnaires and tasks, including the CQ. As noted above, the language tests were included for a companion analysis ( Wilson & Bishop, 2022 ). There were three language tests devised to target different aspects of receptive language skills, including vocabulary knowledge, grammatical sensitivity and pragmatic understanding of implied meaning.…”

“…Validation of the CQ was a secondary purpose of this survey. The main purpose was to compare performance of autistic, dyslexic and neurotypical people on the language tasks for a registered report ( Wilson & Bishop, 2022 ). However, a range of measures were included in Part II so that we could explore the validity of the CQ, including whether it showed a relationship with theoretically linked variables (e.g., autistic traits) but less relationship with theoretically distinct variables (e.g., core language/literacy difficulties).…”