Predictive Processing Among Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder During Online Language Comprehension: A Preliminary Systematic Review

The present study aims to fill the research gap by evaluating published empirical studies and answering the specific research question: Can individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) predict upcoming linguistic information during real-time language comprehension? Following the PRISMA framework, an initial search via PubMed, Web of Science, SCOPUS, and Google Scholar yielded a total of 697 records. After screening the abstract and full text, 10 studies, covering 350 children and adolescents with ASD ranging from 2 to 15 years old, were included for analysis. We found that individuals with ASD may predict the upcoming linguistic information by using verb semantics but not pragmatic prosody during language comprehension. Nonetheless, 9 out of 10 studies used short spoken sentences as stimuli, which may not encompass the complexity of language comprehension. Moreover, eye-tracking in the lab setting was the primary data collection technique, which may further limit the generalizability of the research findings. Using a narrative approach to synthesize and evaluate the research findings, we found that individuals with ASD may have the ability to predict the upcoming linguistic information. However, this field of research still calls for more studies that will expand the scope of research topics, utilize more complex linguistic stimuli, and employ more diverse data collection techniques.