Pragmatic inferences in high-functioning adults with autism and Asperger syndrome.
High-functioning adults with ASD already draw scalar implicatures on par with peers, so target other pragmatic gaps first.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Pijnacker et al. (2009) asked high-functioning adults with autism or Asperger syndrome to judge short stories.
The stories tested scalar implicatures—tiny pragmatic leaps like hearing "some" and knowing it means "not all."
Adults answered on a computer while the team compared their choices to neurotypical adults.
What they found
Both groups made the same inferences. Adults with ASD read "some" and blocked "all" just like controls.
No overall gap showed up, but small subgroup patterns hinted that autism and Asperger profiles may differ.
How this fits with other research
Chevallier et al. (2010) ran a near-copy study and also saw no ASD-control gap, backing the null result.
Petit et al. (2025) looked at autistic kids, not adults, and found weaker scalar-implicature skill. The clash is about age, not truth: kids still learn the trick, adults have mastered it.
Vierck et al. (2015) tested Mandarin-speaking children with ASD and likewise found intact implicatures, showing the skill can be solid across languages and ages.
Why it matters
If you work with adults, expect them to catch everyday scalars like "some," "might," or "start." Don’t waste time drilling what they already own. With kids, probe first—some need explicit cues to block the stronger word. Use the adult data to show parents that these inferences can grow.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Although people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often have severe problems with pragmatic aspects of language, little is known about their pragmatic reasoning. We carried out a behavioral study on high-functioning adults with autistic disorder (n = 11) and Asperger syndrome (n = 17) and matched controls (n = 28) to investigate whether they are capable of deriving scalar implicatures, which are generally considered to be pragmatic inferences. Participants were presented with underinformative sentences like "Some sparrows are birds". This sentence is logically true, but pragmatically inappropriate if the scalar implicature "Not all sparrows are birds" is derived. The present findings indicate that the combined ASD group was just as likely as controls to derive scalar implicatures, yet there was a difference between participants with autistic disorder and Asperger syndrome, suggesting a potential differentiation between these disorders in pragmatic reasoning. Moreover, our results suggest that verbal intelligence is a constraint for task performance in autistic disorder but not in Asperger syndrome.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2009 · doi:10.1007/s10803-008-0661-8