The view that weak central coherence in processing causes autism implies that autistic individuals should exhibit attenuated lexical context effects on speech perception. To test this hypothesis, we examined the degree to which phonetic categorization shifts to make the percept a known word (i.e., the 'Ganong effect') in a neurotypical population with varying degrees of autistic traits. Fifty-eight university students were given the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and a segment identification test using two word-to-nonword VOT continua (kiss-giss and gift-kift). A significant negative correlation was found between the total AQ score and the identification shift that occurred between the continua. The AQ score did not correlate with scores on separately administered VOT discrimination, auditory lexical decision, or verbal IQ, ruling out enhanced auditory sensitivity, slower lexical access or higher intelligence as explanations of the AQ-related shift in phonetic categorization.