Comprehension of Prosodically and Syntactically Marked Focus in Cantonese-Speaking Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder.

This study investigated the comprehension of prosodically and syntactically marked focus by 5- to 8-year-old Cantonese-speaking children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children listened to question-answer dialogues while looking at pictures depicting the scenarios, and judged whether the answers were correct responses to the questions. The results showed that children with ASD exhibited typically developing (TD)-like performance in the use of syntactic cues to understand focus, although they were significantly slower than their TD peers.