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NEW Israel Science Foundation (ISF) funded project 2025-2029: 328/25, "Language Abilities and Input in Multilingual Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A Longitudinal Study.”

This project explores how multilingual children with autism acquire and use language, especially those who speak Hebrew alongside another language like Russian or English. While autism rates are rising globally—including in Israel, where they’ve nearly doubled in recent years—research on multilingual autistic children is still scarce. Building on earlier work with verbal children, this study will also include children who speak very little or not at all. By tracking the language development of 200 children over a year using eye-tracking, speech tasks, and natural conversations, the research will uncover how different types of language exposure influence understanding and speaking. The results aim to improve how educators and therapists support the communication needs of multilingual children with autism and help families make informed decisions about raising children in more than one language.