The Comprehension of Cognitive Verbs Among Autistic Children.
Autistic kids misunderstand think-know certainty, and their Theory-of-Mind skill predicts how well they grasp these fact words.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Eilon et al. (2025) asked autistic and neurotypical kids to judge sentences with think, know, guess, and remember. They wanted to see who understood how sure each word feels.
The team also gave every child a short Theory-of-Mind story set. They checked if better mind-reading scores went hand-in-hand with better verb understanding.
What they found
Autistic children picked the wrong certainty level twice as often as same-age peers. They mixed up “know” (super sure) with “think” (maybe).
Only the autistic group’s Theory-of-Mind scores predicted how well they spotted “know” facts. Stronger mind-reading meant stronger fact-word grasp.
How this fits with other research
Hatton et al. (1999) already showed that kids with PDD-NOS have milder Theory-of-Mind gaps than autistic groups. Inbal’s 2025 data now link those gaps to a real language task—understanding think vs. know—so the old warning still stands: don’t treat all social-cognitive profiles the same.
Koegel et al. (2014) found autistic youth could learn metaphors when taught, even though they started below peers. Inbal sees a similar “can do worse but can learn” pattern with cognitive verbs, hinting that direct verb lessons might close the gap.
Rong et al. (2023) reported that language-delayed autistic kids process Mandarin tones like younger toddlers. Inbal’s children also look younger on word-certainty tasks, suggesting a broad receptive-language lag that spans both sounds and meanings.
Why it matters
If a client says “I think” when they mean “I know,” they may sound unsure and get fewer social chances. Probe cognitive verbs during assessment; add them to your language goals. Pair verb drills with Theory-of-Mind games—improve mind-reading and word meaning together.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Understanding relative certainty and factivity of cognitive verbs (e.g., 'think', 'know') presents a significant challenge for both typically developing (TD) and autistic children. The first aim of the current study was to examine the understanding of these two aspects of cognitive verbs among autistic children compared to their TD peers. The second aim was to explore cognitive and linguistic capacities related to the development of cognitive verb understanding. 59 autistic and 62 TD children, ages 3 to 10 years, participated in a cross-sectional design that tested the comprehension of cognitive verbs in two tasks: understanding relative certainty and understanding factivity. In addition, children were tested in three tasks that evaluated Theory of Mind (TOM), vocabulary, and syntax. Autistic children had more difficulties than their TD peers in understanding the meaning of relative certainty and factivity of cognitive verbs. This difference was shown in both preschool and school-age children. Moreover, using logistic regression models, we found that age emerged as the sole predictor for comprehending cognitive verbs in TD children. For autistic children, TOM was the exclusive predictor for explaining factivity scores, and no predictor was identified for explaining relative certainty scores. The current research reveals a distinct linguistic difference in the comprehension of cognitive verbs between autistic and TD children. The results emphasize the link between understanding cognitive verbs and TOM abilities in autistic children. These results highlight the importance of focusing on the comprehension of cognitive verbs when assessing the language of autistic children.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1016/j.jneuroling.2018.08.002