Abstract
This study employed the Stroop paradigm to examine comprehension of single words in autistic children. The words of interest varied along a concrete-abstract dimension. In the Stroop paradigm, subjects are asked to name the color of ink in which color words are printed. Comprehension is indexed by the degree to which the automatic processing of words interferes with the colornaming task. For both concrete and abstract words, autistic children showed the same degree of interference as readingmatched controls. The findings corroborate and extend previous work suggesting that autistic children understand, and by implication, can mentally represent, at least some word meanings.
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This research was supported by grants from the Hospital for Sick Children Foundation, Toronto, Ontario, NSERC of Canada and Dalhousie RDFS. We thank the children and parents who made this research possible, and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments.
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Eskes, G.A., Bryson, S.E. & McCormick, T.A. Comprehension of concrete and abstract words in autistic children. J Autism Dev Disord 20, 61–73 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02206857
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02206857