Language research has never been richer—spanning formal theory, documentation, neuroscience, psychology, education and AI—yet it remains partitioned by disciplinary silos, methodological habits and WEIRD sampling biases. We argue that progress on core problems—how language is learned, processed, varies, breaks down and can be engineered—requires “retiring linguistics” as an isolated discipline ...

Bilingualism has long been linked with enhanced cognitive benefits, but parents of autistic children are often advised to use one language. One reason might be that there is limited evidence on the foreign language learning abilities of autistic children. This study investigated English word learning among monolingual Mandarin-speaking autistic and typically-developing (TD) children using a lon...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with atypical language-related functional connectivity (FC), though network-level substrates of verbal ability across large multisite cohorts require further characterization. In this study, resting-state fMRI data from 219 individuals with ASD and 322 healthy controls with valid verbal IQ (VIQ) scores were obtained from 12 sites in the ABIDE databas...

This study investigated the effectiveness of a training method that combined Thinking Maps and picture prompts in enhancing metaphor comprehension among four high-functioning Chinese children with autism aged 6–8 years, using a single-baseline, multi-phase experimental design. The findings revealed significant improvements in metaphor comprehension among participants who initially faced challen...

Late-life depression has become a growing concern worldwide. Diagnostic uncertainty pervades in online medical consultations, where family members of older adults with suspected depression seek confirmation of the diagnosis. However, how doctors communicate diagnostic uncertainty to family members has not been studied in these online medical consultations. The study thus aimed to unpack doctors...