Language Control during Bilingual Word Production in Cantonese–English Speaking Autistic and Typically Developing Children

Being bilingual is becoming increasingly common for children worldwide, including those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). While recent studies have examined the effect of bilingual experience on cognitive and linguistic abilities in autistic children, few have focused on how autistic status influences bilingual language switching and control. For the first time, the present study investigates language control during bilingual word production in autistic and typically developing children with a cued language switching paradigm. Results revealed that autistic children tended to make more cross-language mistakes and had more difficulties when switching between languages, while the overall naming latency and language mixing costs were similar across the two groups. The preliminary findings highlight the potential challenges encountered by autistic children on different levels of language control during bilingual production and also suggest that some aspects of language switching performance are comparable between the groups. Clinical implications are also discussed.