Contributions of Executive Functions To Listening Comprehension and Mediation Effects of Verbal IQ among Chinese Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
For Chinese children with ASD, target working memory and cognitive flexibility directly—verbal IQ won’t mediate gains in listening comprehension like it does for TD peers.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Panpan et al. (2025) compared Chinese children with autism to same-age typical peers.
They asked how working memory and cognitive flexibility link to listening comprehension.
The team also checked whether verbal IQ acts as a bridge between these skills.
What they found
Kids with autism relied on working memory and flexibility alone.
Their verbal IQ did not carry the effect.
Typical peers used verbal IQ as a go-between; the direct path was weaker.
How this fits with other research
Rong (2024) saw the same EF–language tie in Mandarin-speaking autistic kids doing a demonstrative task.
Saban-Bezalel et al. (2019) seems to disagree: they found vocabulary, not EF, drove idiom comprehension in ASD. The task difference explains the clash—idioms need word knowledge, general listening needs EF.
Rieth et al. (2022) later showed EF games only help autistic kids who also have ADHD traits. Shuting’s findings say working memory and flexibility matter for everyone with ASD, so pick the right EF target.
Why it matters
When you write goals for listening skills, train working memory and cognitive flexibility head-on. Do not wait for verbal IQ gains to spill over. Use short stories plus recall drills or card-sorting warm-ups before comprehension tasks.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Listening comprehension is crucial for academic achievement and social communication, but is substantially impaired among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To develop effective interventions for improving listening comprehension, it is essential to identify the underlying deficits in core cognitive domains and determine the precise mediation pathways. This study examined the associations between executive functions (EFs), such as working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility, and listening comprehension abilities among Chinese children with ASD (N = 35) and age-matched typically developing (TD) children (N = 40). The ASD group performed statistically lower on tests of inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, listening memory, and verbal IQ than their TD peers. The influences of EFs on listening memory differed between ASD and TD groups due to mediation by verbal IQ. In ASD children, working memory and cognitive flexibility both had direct effects on listening memory but no significant indirect effects via verbal IQ, while among TD children, working memory and cognitive flexibility had no significant direct effects on listening memory but rather influenced listening memory indirectly via verbal IQ. Alternatively, inhibitory control had direct and indirect effects on listening memory in both groups. Verbal IQ and cognitive flexibility significantly predicted listening comprehension ability in children with ASD. Effective strategies to improve listening comprehension among children with ASD must involve EF training and account for differences in reliance on verbal IQ.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1016/j.rasd.2014.11.007