Individuals with autism spectrum disorder are differentially sensitive to interference from previous verbal feedback.
Swap spoken hints for silent visual cues when you need autistic students to change rules.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked the kids to sort picture cards by one rule, then switch to the opposite rule.
Half of the kids had autism, half were neurotypical.
After every mistake, the child heard either a spoken hint or saw a red X on the screen.
What they found
Autistic kids needed more trials to learn the new rule no matter what.
Yet the gap doubled when the hint was spoken instead of the silent X.
Words from the first round stuck in their heads and slowed the switch.
How this fits with other research
Capio et al. (2013) already showed autistic adults struggle with flexible thinking; Reed (2023) proves the trouble starts in childhood and pins part of the cause on lingering verbal feedback.
Connell et al. (2004) cut echolalia by replacing live talk with computer graphics; the new study adds rule-shifting to the list of skills that improve when you turn the voice off.
Marsack-Topolewski et al. (2025) seems to disagree — their autistic listeners adapted to new word sounds just fine. The key difference is passive listening versus active rule switching with feedback, so both papers can be true.
Why it matters
If you teach sorting, conditional discrimination, or any task that flips rules, try silent visual cues first. Drop the spoken hints, use checkmarks, color changes, or gesture. You may see faster shifts and fewer stuck responses in your autistic learners.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder can find behavioural flexibility challenging, often exhibited in terms of repetitive behaviours or restricted ranges of interests and activities. An inability to shift efficiently from one situation to another is connected with problems in daily life, and identifying factors associated with this ability may help develop teaching strategies to improve behavioural flexibility. Some existing findings imply shifting performance for individuals with autism spectrum disorder is better with nonverbal, compared to verbal, feedback - even for those with strong verbal abilities. Unfortunately, there are few behavioural examinations that further explore these findings, which is the aim of this study. In this study, 28 children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and 28 typically developing children matched on cognitive and verbal abilities learned to sort cards according to one out of a possible three dimensions (colour, shape and number), and then had to relearn the sorting rule. One group of typically developing children, and one group of autism spectrum disorder children, received verbal feedback on their performance, and one group received nonverbal feedback. Children with autism spectrum disorder learned an initial categorisation rule as fast as matched typically developing children, and there was little difference in the impact of the type of feedback on acquisition. However, on shifting the classification rule, children with autism spectrum disorder showed slower rates of learning the new rule, which was worse when verbal feedback was used compared to nonverbal feedback. This finding has implications for the interpretations of set-shifting performance and for classroom use of feedback strategies.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2023 · doi:10.1177/13623613221150377