An investigation into the comprehension of indirect meaning in typically developed and autism spectrum disorder populations.

Language is vital for communicating thoughts and ideas, maintaining relationships, and developing our social and cultural world. Although language comprehension is an ability that many of us take for granted, people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience difficulties in social language and pragmatic comprehension.

This project aims to elucidate the mechanisms underpinning comprehension of social language (particularly PI) and how this is affected by ASD (3 high quality publications are anticipated). The project will utilise eye-tracking to provide an online measure which, for the first time, will allow us to determine at what point during comprehension (early or late) individuals with a diagnosis of ASD are sensitive to indirect meaning in simulated discourse.