CSD Team Presents Research on Autistic/Non-Autistic Communication in Prague

Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) Professor Ruth Grossman, director of Emerson’s Facial Affective and Communicative Expressions (FACE) Lab, traveled to Prague, Czech Republic in April, along with research coordinator Elana Groves and CSD graduate student Gabriela Garcia, MS ‘26 to present their latest scientific findings at the annual meeting of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR).

The FACE Lab investigates how autistic and non-autistic individuals produce, perceive, and integrate verbal and nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions and voice prosody, during face-to-face communication. INSAR is a premier international autism conference that draws leading scientists, clinicians, and advocates from around the world to share advancements in autism spectrum research.

Garcia presented her thesis work on conversational behaviors of autistic children in a poster entitled “Topic Adherence and Its Impact on Conversational Behaviors of Autistic Children.” 

The goal of the study was to understand how teenagers react when someone with whom they’re conversing breaks social norms. Two research assistants held conversations with autistic and non-autistic adolescents, with each research assistant behaving differently. One always adhered to expectations for conversational discourse, the other consistently violated those expectations by neglecting to introduce new topics, interrupting, and asking difficult and unusual questions. 

Garcia was interested in learning whether the autistic and non-autistics adolescents would respond differently to these two communicative styles. She measured how participants used verbal and non-verbal listener feedback, (head nods, or “uhum”) and how long they paused before responding to each research assistant. She also measured whether participants requested clarification during conversations (e.g., “she did what?” or “what did he say?”).

Her findings show that both autistic and non-autistic teenagers adapted to the awkwardness in the exact same way, taking longer pauses to process the confusion and working hard to fix the conversation. The only major difference was that non-autistic teenagers relied heavily on filler words like “um” and “uh” to hold their place while thinking. 

Garcia emphasized that these data are critical to showing the importance of conversational context when evaluating autistic and non-autistic language use. 

This was the first major conference Garcia attended, and she was excited to be surrounded by so many researchers who care about the same questions and populations she cares about.

“Attending INSAR as an Emerson student was a very special experience for me,” Garcia said. “I learned a tremendous amount about the field from incredibly knowledgeable and accomplished professionals, but I was especially inspired by everyone’s dedication to continuous learning, improving outcomes for autistic individuals, and centering autistic voices and experiences in their work. “

Grossman and Groves presented “Stick or Switch? Does Task Success Affect Strategy Use on a Collaborative Task between Autistic and Non-Autistic Teens.”Both were part of a study that included researchers from University of Connecticut, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Aarhus University (Denmark) that looked at how pairs of teenagers adjust their communication when playing a collaborative “spot the differences” game.

The researchers wanted to see if hitting a roadblock or failing a round would cause the teens to switch up their strategy. The team found that whether the teens succeeded or failed had no impact; they consistently stuck to their initial communication styles, showing that teenagers maintain a stable approach to problem-solving regardless of the outcome.

Groves and Grossman were also part of a second poster presentation, “Strategy Matters: Neurotype, Sex, and Initiation Strategy Effects on Collaborative Task Success.” Diving deeper into the same teenage guessing game, researchers evaluated which communication strategies actually led to a win. They discovered that teams using highly structured planning or interactive, back-and-forth conversation were much more successful than those who just described what they saw. Interestingly, mixed pairs (made up of one autistic and one non-autistic teenager) performed slightly better than pairs of the same neurotype, suggesting that blending different perspectives and communication styles can actually make a team stronger.

Members of the community can explore these research contributions firsthand by visiting  the FACE Lab’s poster website.

Story by Diana Potter, Office of Research and Creative Scholarship