Youth with autism spectrum disorder comprehend lexicalized and novel primary conceptual metaphors.

The team asked youth with autism to explain common and brand-new metaphors. They compared scores to typically developing peers of the same age.

Each child heard short metaphor sentences like "time is a river" and picked the picture that matched the meaning.

Kids with autism scored above random guessing on both kinds of metaphors. They still lagged behind their typical peers.

The gap shows they can learn metaphors, but they need extra help to catch up.

Ohan et al. (2015) followed up with older verbal teens and adults. They found conceptual reasoning, not language, was the real bottleneck. The same pattern appears: people with autism understand words yet miss the deeper idea.

Mashal et al. (2012) looked at kids with learning disabilities. Those children kept up with novel metaphors, while kids with autism did not. This suggests the metaphor struggle is tied to autism itself, not to any general learning problem.

Shnitzer-Meirovich et al. (2018) went further and taught visual metaphors to adults with Down syndrome. After short lessons, scores jumped. Their success hints that direct training can close the same gap L et al. saw.

When a client with autism takes everything literally, social stories and classroom idioms fall flat. This paper tells you to teach metaphors head-on, not hope they pick them up naturally. Use pictures, act them out, and check understanding the same way you probe tacts or mands. A few clear lessons can move comprehension from chance to solid.