Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social communication and social interaction, as well as restricted repetitive behaviours, interests and activities. There are large individual variations in language and speech acquisition within people with ASD. People with ASD most frequently have difficulties in pragmatics – a language component which, among other things, includes comprehension and production of figurative meaning. Figurative meaning is every meaning which develops by transferring a part of the meaning, in which the meaning refers to a totality of messages that a certain language expression may carry. In typically developing children, comprehension of figurative meaning develops gradually from early childhood until after adolescence. This review paper demonstrates current findings about comprehension and production of figurative meaning in children and adults with ASD, including expressions such as metaphor, idiom, sarcasm, irony, humour, metonymy, proverbs, hyperbole, pun, rhetorical question, indirect requests and euphemism. A review of the literature suggests: 1) presence of difficulties in handling figurative meaning in people with ASD, as well as 2) hemispheric differences and changed neural pathways during processing of figurative meaning in this population. Results from multiple studies show that syntactic and semantic abilities, as well as theory of mind, are good predictors of figurative meaning comprehension. In addition, information about assessment and intervention of figurative meaning is shown, which can be useful to professionals working with people with ASD.