During speech processing, neural activity in non-autistic adults and infants tracks the speech envelope. Recent research in adults indicates that this neural tracking relates to linguistic knowledge and may be reduced in autism. Such reduced tracking, if present already in infancy, could impede language development. In the current study, we focused on children with a family history of autism, who often show a delay in first language acquisition. We investigated whether differences in tracking of sung nursery rhymes during infancy relate to language development and autism symptoms in childhood. We assessed speech-brain coherence at either 10 or 14 months of age in a total of 22 infants with high likelihood of autism due to family history and 19 infants without family history of autism. We analyzed the relationship between speech-brain coherence in these infants and their vocabulary at 24 months as well as autism symptoms at 36 months. Our results showed significant speech-brain coherence in the 10- and 14-month-old infants. We found no evidence for a relationship between speech-brain coherence and later autism symptoms. Importantly, speech-brain coherence in the stressed syllable rate (1–3 Hz) predicted later vocabulary. Follow-up analyses showed evidence for a relationship between tracking and vocabulary only in 10-month-olds but not 14-month-olds and indicated possible differences between the likelihood groups. Thus, early tracking of sung nursery rhymes is related to language development in childhood.

HighlightsThe Eurosibs consortium is a nine-site European neurocognitive study of infants with an older sibling with ASD.Data quality assessments show that that neurocognitive measures hold promise for cross-site consistency in diverse populations.We present robust data analysis pipelines and highlight challenges and opportunities for future multisite research efforts.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show atypical processing of facial expressions. Research with autistic toddlers suggests that abnormalities in processing of spatial frequencies (SFs) contribute to such differences. The current event-related-potential (ERP) study investigated differences between 10-month-old infants with high- and low-likelihood for ASD in SF processing and in discrimination of fearful and neutral faces, filtered to contain specific SF. Results indicate no group differences in general processing of higher (HSF, detailed) and lower-SF (LSF, global) information. However, unlike low-likelihood infants, high-likelihood infants do not discriminate between facial expressions when either the LSF or HSF information is available. Combined with previous findings in toddlers, the current results indicate a developmental delay in efficient processing of facial expressions in ASD.

Background: Several studies have reported action prediction difficulties in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Although action prediction develops in infancy, little is known about prediction abilities in infants at risk for ASD. Methods: Using eye tracking, we measured action anticipations in 52 10-month-old infants at high and low familial risk for ASD. Infants were repeatedly presented with actions during which a familiar object (cup/phone) was either brought to a location usually associated with the object (cup-to-mouth/phone-to-ear; usual condition) or to an unusual location (cup-toear/phone-to-mouth; unusual condition). We assessed infants' anticipations to the actual target location (i.e., the location where the object was actually brought; the mouth in cup-tomouth/phone-to-mouth actions; the ear in cup-to-ear/phone-to-ear actions) and the alternative target location (the ear in cup-to-mouth/phone-to-mouth actions; the mouth in cup-to-ear/phone-to-ear actions). Results: Anticipation frequencies were modulated by object knowledge across all infants: We found more frequent anticipations towards the alternative target location for unusual compared to usual actions. This effect was in particular present for mouth anticipations which were also overall more frequent than ear anticipations. Across usual and unusual actions, infants showed more frequent anticipations towards the actual target location, potentially representing a learning effect elicited by the repeated action presentation. Importantly, there were no differences between the low-and high-risk infants in predictive eye movements. Conclusion: Whereas our results suggest that familial risk for ASD does not affect action prediction in infancy, future research needs to investigate whether differences are apparent in those high-risk infants who later receive a diagnosis.

This research was supported by grants from the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme (Brainview, grant agreement number 642996) and EFPIA/Innovative Medicines Initiative (EUAIMS, grant agreement number 115300) and was approved by the medical ethics committee (Commissie Mensgebonden Onderzoek Arnhem-Nijmegen, protocol NL42726.091.13). The authors would like to thank Loes Vinkenvleugel, Manon De Korte and Yvette De Bruijn, research assistants on the project, Lorijn Zaadnoordijk and Suhas Hassan Vijayakumar for providing technical help in the lab, and Nadine Dijkstra for help with coding and BFL.