ArticleAutism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research2024
Do focused interests support word learning? A study with autistic and nonautistic children.
Article in Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Examining the Roles of Retrieval Practice and Post-Retrieval Feedback in Learning Among Autistic Adults.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Article
- Inquiry and innovation: Considering curiosity and creativity in autism.Acta psychologica · 2026Review
- Communication Research Priorities for Autism Research: Insights from a Caregiver Survey.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The Art of the Special Interest: Lexicon-Based Analysis of Longitudinal Changes in Language Patterns Among Neurodiverse Youth Designing Special Interest-Related Digital Art.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Incorporating special interests to investigate the language system in autism: A feasibility pilot fMRI study.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Sensory-movement underpinnings of lifelong neurodivergence: getting a grip on autism.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2025Article
- Quality of remotely-collected gaze data in autistic and nonspectrum children.Language development research · 2025Article
- A novel method for examining autistic children's comprehension of individual words produced within delayed echolalia: a proof-of-concept pilot study.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Stick with Static: Unexpected Detrimental Effects of Visual Movement in a Looking-While-Listening Task.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2024Article
- Personalized Neuroimaging Reveals the Impact of Children's Interests on Language Processing in the Brain.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Personalized neuroimaging reveals the impact of children's interests on language processing in the brain.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Although focused interests are often associated with a diagnosis of autism, they are common in nonautistic individuals as well. Previous studies have explored how these interests impact cognitive, social, and language development. While some research has suggested that strong interests can detract from learning (particularly for autistic children), newer research has indicated that they can be advantageous. In this pre-registered study, we asked whether focused interests support word learning in 44 autistic children and a vocabulary-matched sample of 44 nonautistic children (mean ages 58 and 34 months respectively). In a word-learning task administered over Zoom, children were exposed to an action labeled by a novel word. The action was either depicted by their focused interest or by a neutral image; stimuli were personalized for each child. At test, they were asked to identify the referent of the novel word, and their eye gaze was evaluated as a measure of learning. The preregistered analyses revealed an effect of focused interests, and post-hoc analyses clarified that autistic children learned the novel word in both the focused interest and neutral conditions, while nonautistic children only showed evidence of learning in the neutral condition. These results suggest that focused interests are not disruptive for vocabulary learning in autism, and thus they could be utilized in programming that supports early language learning in this population.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.