Verbal association for simple common words in high-functioning autism

We investigated conceptual relationships in semantic memory using an indirect priming technique in high-functioning autistic adolescents and their controls who were matched for age, verbal IQ, performance IQ, and nonverbal reasoning ability. The prime was a single word and the target task was completing a word fragment that was semantically related or unrelated to the prime word. The autistic subjects and controls showed similar semantic priming effects, indicating intact conceptual relationships for simple common words in those with autism. Only in the autistic group was a significant correlation found between performance for the related items and two nonverbal cognitive measures, which suggests a possibility that semantic processing in individuals with autism might be qualitatively different from that in controls.