Autism contains a puzzling conundrum: Although 70% of autistic individuals demonstrate age-appropriate language and cognitive abilities on standardized tests, they nonetheless experience significant communication breakdowns during everyday interactions that negatively affect their social, educational, and occupational outcomes. This proposal advances research and clinical practice by defining clinically meaningful markers of conversational success in 560 autistic and neurotypical adolescents participating in (1) neurotype-concordant (autistic-autistic or neurotypical-neurotypical) and (2) neurotype-discordant (autistic-neurotypical) dyads. By combining traditional standardized language tests with innovative psycholinguistic measures derived from spontaneous natural conversations, a key output of this project will be clinically useful and ecologically valid profiles of communication strengths and weaknesses that can be used to inform personalized interventions focused on improving autistic adolescents’ conversational success. See this article for more details!
Our project team includes Inge-Marie Eigsti (PI), Ruth Grossman of Emerson College, Julia Parish-Morris of CHOP, and Ethan Weed and Riccardo Fusaroli of Aarhus University. We are joined by postdoctoral fellows Stella Lue Shen and Christopher Cox, Graduate Assistants Hannah O’Connor Sarah Schillinger, and post-bac fellows Elana Groves, Hannah Franke, and Cynthia Petersons. We benefit from the guidance and input of a strong Advisory Board.
Some recent presentations from the CONNECT team:
Franke, H., Shen, S., Petersons, C., Abashidze, N., Groves, E., O’Connor, H., Schillinger, S., Eigsti, I. M., Grossman, R., Fusaroli, R., Weed, E., & Parish-Morris, J. (2026, March 11-14). “Do you have anything you wanna ask me?”: Examining the relationship between questions and conversational enjoyment in autistic and non-autistic teens. Meeting on Language in Autism, Atlanta, GA. (download: Franke et al.,_MoLA_2026)
Franke, H., Schillinger, S., O’Connor, H., Groves, E., Abashidze, N., Petersons, C., Shen, S., Prescott, K., Cox, C., Weed, E., Fusaroli, R., Grossman, R., Parish-Morris, J., & Eigsti, I. M. (2026, April 22-25). Investigating the relationship between laughter and conversational enjoyment in autistic and non-autistic teens. International Society for Autism Research (INSAR), Prague, Czech Republic.
Groves, E., Schillinger, S., O’Connor, H., Franke, H., Abashidze, N., Petersons, C., Shen, S., Cox, C., Weed, E., Fusaroli, R., Parish-Morris, J., Eigsti, I. M., & Grossman, R. (2026, March 11-14). Oral Presentation: Neurotype and sex effects on conversational initiation in a virtual task-based interaction. Meeting on Language in Autism, Atlanta, GA.
Groves, E., Franke, H., Petersons, C., Shen, L., Schillinger, S., O’Connor, H., Abashidze, N., Cox, C., Weed, E., Fusaroli, R., Parish-Morris, J., Eigsti, I. M., & Grossman, R. (2026, April 22-25). Strategy Matters: Neurotype, Sex, and Initiation Strategy Effects on Collaborative Task Success. International Society for Autism Research, Prague, Czech Republic.
Groves, E., Schillinger, S., O’Connor, H., Franke, H., Abashidze, N., Petersons, C., Shen, L., Cox, C., Weed, E., Fusaroli, R., Parish-Morris, J., Eigsti, I. M., & Grossman, R. (2026, April 22-25). Stick or Switch? Does Task Success Affect Strategy Use on a Collaborative Task between Autistic and Non-Autistic Teens International Society for Autism Research, Prague, Czech Republic.
Schillinger, S., O’Connor, H., Groves, E., Franke, H., Abashidze, N., Petersons, C., Shen, S., Prescott, K., Cox, C., Weed, E., Fusaroli, R., Grossman, R., Parish-Morris, J., & Eigsti, I. M. (2026, March 11-14). “A quick hello”: Exploring informal self-introductions of autistic and non-autistic adolescents over Zoom. Meeting on Language in Autism, Atlanta, GA. (download: Schillinger_MoLA_2026)
Schillinger, S., O’Connor, H., Franke, H., Petersons, C., Groves, E., Abashidze, N., Shen, S., Prescott, K., Cox, C., Weed, E., Fusaroli, R., Grossman, R., Parish-Morris, J., & Eigsti, I. M. (2026, April 22-25). What I say versus what you see: Do self-reported autistic characteristics and camouflaging behaviors predict diagnostic impressions from naive peers? International Society for Autism Research, Prague, Czech Republic.
Shen, S., Prescott, K., Petersons, C., Schillinger, S., O’Connor, H., Groves, E., Franke, H., Abashidze, N., Weed, E., Fusaroli, R., Grossman, R., Parish-Morris, J., & Eigsti, I. M. (2026, March 11-14). Comparing direct and parent-report measures of expressive language abilities in autistic and neurotypical teenagers. Meeting on Language in Autism, Atlanta, GA.
