Grammatical Language Impairment in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Exploring Language Phenotypes Beyond Standardized Testing

Wittke, Kacie; Mastergeorge, Ann M.; Ozonoff, Sally J; Rogers, Sally J.; Naigles, Letitia R.

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00532

Cited by 122 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Further, LENA output is limited by the detection of utterances, not actual words, grammatical morphemes, or sentences. Such language outputs are important for better understanding the challenges and heterogeneity in children and adolescents with ASD [Wittke, Mastergeorge, Ozonoff, Rogers, & Naigles, ]. Automatic speech recognition technology is advancing rapidly, but, as suggested by the findings reported here, any new system made available on the market for use in research or in clinical practice should be thoroughly tested on a variety of populations and contexts, to ensure that the tools reliably capture the communication profiles and language environments of the targeted individuals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How effective is LENA in detecting speech vocalizations and language produced by children and adolescents with ASD in different contexts?

Jones

Skwerer

Pawar³

et al. 2019

Autism Research

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The LENA system was designed and validated to provide information about the language environment in children 0 to 4 years of age and its use has been expanded to populations with a number of communication profiles. Its utility in children 5 years of age and older is not yet known. The present study used acoustic data from two samples of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to evaluate the reliability of LENA automated analyses for detecting speech utterances in older, school age children, and adolescents with ASD, in clinic and home environments. Participants between 5 and 18 years old who were minimally verbal (study 1) or had a range of verbal abilities (study 2) completed standardized assessments in the clinic (study 1 and 2) and in the home (study 2) while speech was recorded from a LENA device. We compared LENA segment labels with manual ground truth coding by human transcribers using two different methods. We found that the automated LENA algorithms were not successful (<50% reliable) in detecting vocalizations from older children and adolescents with ASD, and that the proportion of speaker misclassifications by the automated system increased significantly with the target‐child's age. The findings in children and adolescents with ASD suggest possibly misleading results when expanding the use of LENA beyond the age ranges for which it was developed and highlight the need to develop novel automated methods that are more appropriate for older children. Autism Research 2019, 12: 628–635. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Lay Summary Current commercially available speech detection algorithms (LENA system) were previously validated in toddlers and children up to 48 months of age, and it is not known whether they are reliable in older children and adolescents. Our data suggest that LENA does not adequately capture speech in school age children and adolescents with autism and highlights the need to develop new automated methods for older children.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How effective is LENA in detecting speech vocalizations and language produced by children and adolescents with ASD in different contexts?

Jones

Skwerer

Pawar³

et al. 2019

Autism Research

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“…), grammatical errors or limited vocabulary (Wittke et al . ). Given the communication difficulties experienced by many children and adults with autism, SLPs have an important role in assessing and providing intervention for this population (Speech Pathology Australia ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Some individuals experience significant impairments in all areas of communication (including language, speech and pragmatic functions), with minimal intentional communication use and/or significantly disordered language, while others with autism may have more subtle difficulties with conversation and impaired pragmatic language, and higher level language difficulties (Gernsbacher et al 2015). For those with autism and a comorbid language disorder, difficulties may include impairments in structural language and receptive language abilities (Loucas et al 2008), grammatical errors or limited vocabulary (Wittke et al 2017). Given the communication difficulties experienced by many children and adults with autism, SLPs have an important role in assessing and providing intervention for this population (Speech Pathology Australia 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Telehealth and autism: Are telehealth language assessments reliable and feasible for children with autism?

Sutherland

Trembath

Redoblado-Hodge

et al. 2018

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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Background Access to timely and appropriate speech–language pathology (SLP) services is a significant challenge for many families. Telehealth has been used successfully to treat a range of communication disorders in children and adults. Research examining the use of telehealth for children with autism has focused largely on diagnosis, parent‐implemented interventions, and behavioural interventions involving interactions between clinicians and parents. There is, however, very limited research into the use of telehealth directly to assess or intervene with children with autism. This paper reports the outcomes of a study of telehealth language assessments with primary school‐aged children with autism. Aims To evaluate the reliability and feasibility of telehealth language assessments for school‐aged children with autism. Methods & Procedures The language skills of 13 children with autism aged 9–12 who attended mainstream schools or support classes were assessed using the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals—4th Edition. An SLP delivered and scored four subtests of the assessment via telehealth from a remote location. A second SLP at the same location as the child co‐scored the online subtests to provide a measure of reliability and delivered the remaining subtests. The local SLP completed checklists in both conditions to provide observations regarding behaviour. Parent feedback was elicited via survey. Outcomes & Results There was strong interrater reliability between the telehealth and face‐to‐face conditions (correlation coefficients ranged from r = 0.919 to 0.990 across the subtests and Core Language Score) and good agreement between clinicians on all measures. Analysis using the Wilcoxon Signed Rank test indicated no significant differences in children's behaviour between the telehealth and face‐to‐face conditions, although variation between individuals was observed. Parents provided generally positive feedback about the use of telehealth for the assessments. Conclusions & Implications The findings of this study provide preliminary support the use of telehealth assessments of school‐aged children with autism. Comparison of telehealth and face‐to‐face assessment scores showed high agreement and correlation, and while the children showed individual differences in their behaviour during the telehealth sessions, there was no clear difference between the conditions at the group level. The findings suggest that telehealth may present a reliable and feasible approach to the assessment of language for children with autism in some circumstances as a primary or adjunct service model, while acknowledging that individual differences among these children may be important to consider when planning both assessment and intervention via telehealth.

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“…Finally, the third group of studies suggests that the children with ASD are a heterogeneous group; some of them show grammar deficiency while some others have age-appropriate grammar. Therefore, grammatical skills are not considered as a marker for the diagnosis of autism [11]. Rapin and Dunn [12] compared 300 children with ASD between ages 2 to 5 years with 262 children with language developmental disorders.…”

Section: Comparing Grammatical Characteristics Between Children With mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tager-flusberg [11] Dissociations in form and function in the acquisition of language by autistic children. Constraints on language acquisition…”

Section: Canada Comparison Between Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics of Grammar in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Narrative Review of Evidence

Beytollahi

Soleymani

2019

J. Mod. Rehabil.

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Grammatical Language Impairment in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Exploring Language Phenotypes Beyond Standardized Testing

Cited by 122 publications

References 59 publications

How effective is LENA in detecting speech vocalizations and language produced by children and adolescents with ASD in different contexts?

How effective is LENA in detecting speech vocalizations and language produced by children and adolescents with ASD in different contexts?

Telehealth and autism: Are telehealth language assessments reliable and feasible for children with autism?

Characteristics of Grammar in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Narrative Review of Evidence

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