Surveying the Language Switching Behaviours of Multilingual Autistic and Non-Autistic Adults.
Speaking autistic adults juggle more languages than most clinicians think—let them use every one during therapy.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Baker et al. (2025) sent an online survey to autistic and non-autistic adults.
They asked how many languages each person speaks and how hard it feels to switch between them.
The team wanted to see if autistic adults live different multilingual lives than their peers.
What they found
Autistic adults reported knowing and using more languages than non-autistic adults.
Yet the same group said switching languages costs more mental effort.
In short: more languages, more work.
How this fits with other research
Sharaan et al. (2021) and Northrup et al. (2022) studied bilingual autistic kids.
Both found small boosts in attention and executive skills, giving parents a green light to keep two languages.
K et al. now show the story continues into adulthood: autistic people stay multilingual, even if it feels harder.
The new survey also echoes Taboas et al. (2023): when you ask autistic adults directly, you learn things clinic files never show.
Why it matters
If you write "English only" on a treatment plan, check first.
Ask your client which languages they really use at home, work, and online.
Let them switch or mix words during sessions; the effort they report is real.
Reinforce communication in any language, then shape it toward your target.
Get CEUs on This Topic — Free
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ on-demand CEUs including ethics, supervision, and clinical topics like this one. Plus a new live CEU every Wednesday.
Add a language-use question to your intake form and honor any extra languages during mand sessions.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
PURPOSE: Whilst research in multilingualism and autism is increasing, there is still a gap when it comes to understanding how multilingual autistic individuals use their multiple languages. The aim of this research was to survey these linguistic behaviours from a self-report perspective and compare them to non-autistic multilingual individuals. METHODS: We collected data from 364 participants of which 177 (autistic = 98; mean age = 44.5, non-autistic = 79; mean age = 42.2) were included in the final analysis. Multilingual usage and switching behaviour were measured through an online questionnaire made available on Qualtrics, developed for the purpose of this research. RESULTS: The questionnaire revealed that autistic participants rated themselves as more multilingual, based on number of languages known, and used their respective languages more than non-autistic participants, although they reported switching between their languages as more effortful than non-autistic participants. A large portion of autistic individuals also reported using a non-native language daily and a similar number of autistic and non-autistic participants reported having lived in a country where their first or second language was spoken. Overall, autistic participants reported comparable or more multilingual language usage than non-autistic participants. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this research demonstrate that speaking autistic adults are, as one might intuitively expect, living active multilingual lives comparable to their typical peers. Future research should further investigate the rapport autistic multilingual individuals have with their linguistic communities via their language usage and the cognitive flexibility that may be associated with living multilingual and cross-national lives.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1044/persp1.SIG14.17