Language Differences at 12 Months in Infants Who Develop Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Little is known about early language development in infants who later develop autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We analyzed prospective data from 346 infants, some of whom were at high risk for developing ASD, to determine if language differences could be detected at 12 months of age in the infants who later were diagnosed with ASD. Analyses revealed lower receptive and expressive language scores in infants who later were diagnosed with ASD. Controlling for overall ability to understand and produce single words, a Rasch analysis indicated that infants who later developed ASD had a higher degree of statistically unexpected word understanding and production. At 12 months of age, quantitative and qualitative language patterns distinguished infants who later developed ASD from those who did not.

Toward a conceptual framework for early brain and behavior development in autism

“…Complementing the syndromic approach noted above, differences between select behavioral dimensions associated with autism were detected between groups at 12 months, but not earlier. For example, several studies reported that HR-ASD children differ from HR-negative and LR 12-month-old in emerging language abilities, 7 , 9 , 10 , 11 aspects of social-cognition, 12 , 13 and repetitive behaviors. 14 , 15 , 16 With few exceptions, the majority of studies examining the early emerging ASD behavioral phenotype are hindered by small sample sizes and methodological/conceptual variations in study design ( Text Box 1 ).…”

Identifying Areas of Overlap and Distinction in Early Lexical Profiles of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Late Talkers, and Typical Talkers

“…Bruckner et al suggested that ASD symptomatology, such as restricted object use, deficits in orienting to social cues, and social communication deficits, might be related to vocabulary differences between children with ASD and typically developing children. A more recent study by Lazenby et al (2016) also showed that certain words on the CDI were statistically more or less frequent in the vocabularies of infants who later were diagnosed with ASD, compared to typically developing infants.…”

“…Although the current diagnostic criteria for ASD does not include lexical or grammatical language deficits (American Psychiatric Association 2013), receptive and expressive language delays have been found to differentiate children who will and will not go on to receive a diagnosis of ASD at ages as young as 12 months (Lazenby et al 2016). Given this, previous research has examined the relation between various language domains and the language deficits in children with ASD (for an excellent review, see Eigsti et al 2011).…”

Eurosibs: Towards robust measurement of infant neurocognitive predictors of autism across Europe

“…Further, language development may proceed differently in different cultures; to tap comparable abilities items may need to be adjusted on a per-country basis (Peña, 2007). However, this poses other challenges for harmonisation and data pooling: adjusting scales based on how typically developing infants acquire language in different cultures may not account for the fact that infants developing autism may have their own idiosyncratic acquisition patterns of word acquisition (Lazenby et al, 2016). Further, there were also heterogeneous language experiential profiles within some of our sites (particularly for site A and E), with exposure to additional languages very common.…”