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Dis/Associations Between Language and In-the-Moment Mental Rotation Effort in Autism.

Caroline Larson^1,2, Laura M Morett^1,2, Sophie Barth¹

¹Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA.

Autism Research : Official Journal of the International Society for Autism Research

|August 14, 2025

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Language and visuospatial systems interact differently in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In autistic individuals, stronger grammar skills correlated with less efficient cognitive effort during visuospatial tasks, unlike neurotypical peers.

Keywords:

autism language mental rotation pupillometry

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Neuroscience
Developmental Psychology
Autism Spectrum Disorder Research

Background:

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by significant heterogeneity in language and visuospatial skills.
In-the-moment cognitive processes underlying these skills may reveal underlying neural dissociations.
Pupillometry offers a physiological measure to assess cognitive effort during tasks.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate in-the-moment associations between structural language and visuospatial cognition in individuals with ASD.
To examine cognitive effort patterns during a mental rotation task using pupillometry.
To compare these associations between children and young adults with ASD and neurotypical (NT) peers.

Main Methods:

Participants included 25 individuals with ASD and 25 age- and IQ-matched NT controls.
A mental rotation task with varying dimensional figures and objects was administered.
Pupillometry measured cognitive effort, and structural language was assessed using the Test of Language Development: Intermediate grammar subscale.

Main Results:

No overall group differences in average pupil dilation or cognitive effort time course were found.
Significant group differences emerged in the relationship between grammar skills and cognitive effort latency for 3D objects.
Autistic individuals with higher grammar skills showed less efficient cognitive effort, while NT individuals with higher grammar skills showed more efficient effort.

Conclusions:

Language and visuospatial systems appear more dissociated in individuals with ASD compared to NT peers.
The findings highlight the importance of examining the temporal dynamics of cognitive interactions in ASD.
Individual differences in language skills influence cognitive effort allocation during visuospatial processing in ASD.