Comprehension of Abstract Concepts and Embodiment Metaphors in Persian Speaking ‎Children with Autism and Normal Language-matched Children

Metaphors are grounded in correlation with embodiment experience, and any defect in the sensory-motor system leads to the lack of bodily experiences and, consequently, to a lack of understanding of abstract concepts, including metaphors. Poor understanding of metaphor is one of the main characteristics of autism spectrum disorder. Due to the linguistic nature of metaphors and the lack of similar results in previous research, it is necessary to study the comprehension of metaphor and its effective factors in Persian-speaking children with autism.

In this study, 20 Persian-speaking primary school children with autism were selected from autism centers (Peyke honor, Besharat, and Payambare Azam) in Tehran (age of 7 to 11 years) and after performing a language test, 11 children with a language age of 5 to 6 years were selected and compared with 11 normal language-matched children. To examine the understanding of embodiment metaphors in Persian, Soltani et al (2021). test was used and to evaluate the language level of autistic and normal children, language development test  of Nilipour et al (2021) was used.

The results showed that the comparison of metaphor Comprehension between the two groups showed that in all three scores, ie visual metaphor Comprehension score, auditory metaphor comprehension score and general metaphor Comprehension score, there is a significant difference between the two groups of children with autism and normal children (p<0/000). In both groups, the average Comprehension score of visual metaphors is lower than auditory metaphors. In children with autism, there is a positive correlation between language and metaphorical understanding in all tasks except auditory discrimination, morphology, and syntactic perception.

Therefore, Persian-speaking children with autism are weak in comprehending metaphors in both visual and auditory channels and need attention, assessment and treatment, and attention to related factors such as can be useful in designing their treatment protocols.