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Do Autistic People Understand Sarcasm?

People with autism usually have a hard time understanding sarcasm and may take sarcastic speech literally.

steven zauderer
Steven Zauderer
September 20, 2023
1.5
min read

Can Autistic People Understand Sarcasm?

People with autism usually have a hard time understanding sarcasm and may take sarcastic speech literally.

This makes it challenging for them to understand when people are joking and teasing.

In a study with a group of 19 children on the autism spectrum, the children with autism were just as able to detect sarcasm as the children without these disorders.

The autistic children made their choices more quickly, and took on average 3.56 seconds o put the shark in the answer box, compared with 4.34 seconds for the non-autistic individuals.

This study shows that children with autism can sometimes understand sarcastic speech, possibly because the examples of sarcasm that were used in the experiment were simple, and the children didn't ned to explain themselves in words to show their understanding.

steven zauderer

CEO of CrossRiverTherapy - a national ABA therapy company based in the USA.

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