Impairment or difference? The case of Theory of Mind abilities and pragmatic competence in the Autism Spectrum

Psycholinguistic research on pragmatics in the neurotypical population has increasingly framed pragmatic competence and related cognitive skills in terms of individual differences, co-constructed discourse, and meaning negotiation. However, research on pragmatics in the Autism Spectrum has risen fro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Applied psycholinguistics 2023-05, Vol.44 (3), p.365-383
Main Author:	Marocchini, Eleonora
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Autism Autistic children Beliefs Cognition Cognition & reasoning Cognitive ability Communication Communication (Thought Transfer) Communication disorders Dehumanization Females Gender Hypotheses Individual differences Inferences Interpersonal Competence Language disorders Objectivity Original Article Personality Pragmatics Psycholinguistics Psychological Studies Scientific Methodology Semiotics Social Cognition Teaching Methods Theory of mind Towards a Just and Equitable Applied Psycholinguistics Verbal Ability Visual Stimuli
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Summary:	Psycholinguistic research on pragmatics in the neurotypical population has increasingly framed pragmatic competence and related cognitive skills in terms of individual differences, co-constructed discourse, and meaning negotiation. However, research on pragmatics in the Autism Spectrum has risen from a wide and biased view of autistic communication as fundamentally compromised and autistic pragmatic abilities as impaired. Mostly due to the impactful theory of a deficit in Theory of Mind, early research on autistic communication presumed a unitary pragmatic impairment, only to find that several pragmatic abilities seem to be “preserved.” However, the interpretation of these findings usually takes an ableist turn, as most studies subsequently suggest that surface-level performance should not be interpreted as competence, but rather as a result of “compensatory” strategies. The raising number of contributions from autistic academics and participatory research enriched the field with new perspectives focusing on differences rather than impairments and drawing hypotheses on communication difficulties between neurotypes rather than within a specific neurotype. However, such contributions are hardly ever cited in the most prominent works. In conclusion, the field would benefit from a higher level of citation of autistic-led research and from an epistemological perspective shift within the mostly neurotypical academic community.
ISSN:	0142-7164 1469-1817