Pathways to meaning: Written and spoken word priming in children with ASD versus typically developing peers

• Several mechanisms underpinning the successful use of visual supports with individuals with ASD exist within the literature.
• We investigated if modality of linguistic stimuli (spoken or written words) influenced lexical access in children with ASD and controls.
• Lexical access was not facilitated by written or spoken words within cross-modal experimental tasks for either group.
• Lexical access was facilitated by spoken words within a uni-modal experimental task only for young ASD participants.

Visual supports are widely utilized with children on the autism spectrum, however, the effect of visual versus auditory modality on language comprehension has not been directly investigated. To address this issue, we utilized a semantic priming paradigm in two experiments with 18 children with ASD and no language impairment and 14 children with typical development. In the first, cross-modal experiment with a spoken word prime, no priming effect was identified. In the second, uni-modal written word prime experiment, a three-way interaction was identified. Subsequent analysis revealed that priming occurred only in the younger participants with ASD. These results are discussed in terms of the cross- and uni-modal demands of the two experiments and in light of lexical processing of spoken and written words within a developmental framework.