Seven Small Studies, One Honest Signal

What the research found

Figurative language is the part of speech that does not mean what it says. “She has a heart of gold.” “Break a leg.” “Oh, well done.” Metaphor, idiom and irony carry meaning beyond the literal words, and reading them correctly depends on context, tone and shared understanding. This is often difficult for autistic children. A new scoping review asks a narrower and more useful question than most: not whether autistic children struggle with figurative language, but whether they can be taught it, and what teaching actually works.

A scoping review maps the existing research on a topic rather than pooling it into a single number. The authors searched two databases, ERIC and Google Scholar, for studies published between 2010 and 2025. To be included, a study had to involve autistic children aged five to eighteen, test an intervention aimed specifically at figurative-language comprehension, and report real outcome data. Seven studies met that bar. Five targeted metaphor, one targeted idioms, and one targeted sarcasm and irony. Together they involved roughly 43 children in total. Five of the seven had three or fewer participants.

The central finding is straightforward and encouraging: across all seven studies, children learned the material they were taught. In one metaphor study, children moved from almost no correct answers at baseline to near-ceiling accuracy after training. In the idiom study, all ten participants learned the nine taught idioms with high accuracy. In the sarcasm study, all three children improved markedly and could then identify sarcastic remarks. Every intervention used explicit, structured teaching, often paired with visual supports, worked examples and deliberate practice. Nothing here was left to happen by exposure alone.

The more revealing finding is about transfer, meaning whether a skill learned on one set of items shows up on new, untaught ones. Here the picture divides cleanly by what was taught. Metaphor and sarcasm interventions tended to generalise: four of the five metaphor studies showed gains on untrained metaphors, and the sarcasm study’s children detected novel sarcastic comments they had never practised. The idiom study did not generalise at all. The ten children learned their nine idioms but stayed near the floor on nine untrained control idioms. The likely reason is structural. Metaphor and sarcasm rest on underlying patterns a child can learn to apply. Idioms are largely arbitrary; “kick the bucket” has to be memorised one phrase at a time.

Maintenance, meaning whether the learning lasted, was measured only patchily. Where it was checked, gains held over the short term: two months in one metaphor study, three months for at least two of the three children in the sarcasm study, two weeks for idioms. Beyond a few months, the review found essentially no data.

What it means for you and your child

The reassuring takeaway is real, and worth stating plainly. Figurative language is teachable. If your child takes idioms literally or misses when someone is being sarcastic, this is not a fixed ceiling. In every study reviewed, direct, explicit instruction produced learning. The mechanism was never subtle: name the pattern, show worked examples, practise deliberately, and check the result. That approach is available to any thoughtful parent, tutor or teacher, and it is the opposite of hoping a child will simply pick it up.

The second lesson is about what to teach, and it is the most practically useful thing in the paper. Not all figurative language behaves the same way. Metaphor and sarcasm carry transferable rules, so teaching a handful of examples can seed a broader skill. Idioms do not; each one is its own small fact to be learned. If you are working on idioms with your child, expect to teach each phrase directly and do not assume that learning “raining cats and dogs” will unlock “cost an arm and a leg.” For metaphor and irony, it is worth drawing attention to the underlying signal, the semantic link or the tone of voice, rather than drilling isolated examples.

Now the honest limits, which this review is unusually candid about. This is a map of seven small studies, not a verdict. Most had a handful of participants and no control group, which means we cannot cleanly separate the intervention’s effect from ordinary development or practice. The children studied varied widely, so we cannot say how well these results apply to any particular child, including yours. A scoping review does not, and cannot, produce a single effect size or a treatment recommendation. It tells us the terrain looks promising and where the gaps lie.

Two gaps deserve emphasis before you draw conclusions. First, none of the seven studies showed that trained skills carried into real, unscripted conversation. Children performed well on tasks that resembled their training; whether they then read sarcasm at the dinner table or a metaphor in a novel is simply unknown. Second, long-term retention beyond a few months was not measured. Short-term gains are genuine but are not the same as durable, everyday competence.

So treat this as grounds for well-directed effort, not a guarantee. If figurative language is a struggle for your child, the evidence supports teaching it directly, choosing methods that suit the type of language, and practising to the point of transfer where transfer is possible. Watch for whether skills appear in ordinary conversation, because that is the outcome that matters and the one this research has not yet demonstrated. The signal from these seven studies is honest and encouraging. It is also, by the authors’ own account, thin. Both things are true at once.