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document
Do readers with autism make bridging inferences from world knowledge ? Individuals with autism frequently show impairments in text reading comprehension . This often is attributed to poor ability to draw inferences during reading and to inadequate access to relevant knowledge . The current study tested this hypothesis by measuring the time taken to read the same question , relating to either physical or social world knowledge , when it was either relevant or irrelevant to the bridging inference evoked by a preceding two-sentence vignette . In the study , 16 normally developing adolescents and 16 adolescents with autism were matched on word reading accuracy , chronological age , and vocabulary but differed significantly in text comprehension . A strong priming effect was found , robust over participants and over items ; participants read those questions that were relevant to the inference evoked by the vignette faster than they read those questions that were irrelevant , and no interaction with group membership or type of knowledge was found . This indicates that readers with autism , just like controls , were activating appropriate world knowledge primed by implicit inferences while reading the vignettes . Thus , the comprehension problems in these readers can not be attributed to an inability to make implicit inferences or to draw on relevant world knowledge . Instead , we suggest that these problems must be sought at a higher level of text processing .
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Intervention_Educational
read the same question , relating to either physical or social world knowledge , when it was either relevant or irrelevant to the bridging inference evoked by a preceding two-sentence vignette
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Participant_Condition
autism
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Participant_Condition
16 normally developing
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Participant_Condition
16
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Participant_Condition
autism
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Participant_Sample-size
autism