Mandarin-Speaking Monolingual Children with Autism Can Learn and Retain Foreign Language Words: A Longitudinal Study

Bilingualism has long been linked with enhanced cognitive benefits, but parents of children with autism are often advised to use one language. One reason might be that there is limited evidence on the foreign language learning abilities of children with autism. This study investigated English word learning among monolingual Mandarin-speaking children with autism and typically-developing (TD) children using a longitudinal design. Participants were taught 48 English object names in a classroom-like setting over eight weekly sessions. Before starting the program, participants completed a pretest to calculate the percentage of target words they could identify and translate from English to Chinese. To measure their short-term learning outcomes, they completed an immediate learning test at the end of each session and a delayed test at the following session. Long-term retention was measured using final tests at one and five weeks after the learning program ended. Both groups showed stable weekly retention and comparable performance across sessions. Critically, children with autism achieved overall learning outcomes comparable to their typically developing peers. Nonverbal Intelligence Quotient (IQ) was associated with learning outcomes in both groups, whereas prior foreign language (L2) exposure was selectively associated with performance in children with autism. These findings provide preliminary evidence that children with autism can effectively learn and retain L2 words, challenging recommendations for monolingualism. Future studies should explore more complex linguistic domains, such as grammar and pragmatics, to further understand foreign language acquisition among children with autism.