The Development of Coordinated Communication in Infants at Heightened Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

This study evaluated the extent to which developmental change in coordination of social communication in early infancy differentiates children eventually diagnosed with ASD from those not likely to develop the disorder. A prospective longitudinal design was used to compare 9 infants at heightened risk for ASD (HR) later diagnosed with ASD, to 13 HR infants with language delay, 28 HR infants with no diagnosis, and 30 low risk infants. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analyses revealed that ASD infants exhibited significantly slower growth in coordinations overall and in gestures coordinated with vocalizations, even relative to HR infants with language delay. Disruption in the development of gesture-vocalization coordinations may result in negative cascading effects that negatively impact later social and linguistic development.

Coordination is key: Joint attention and vocalisation in infant siblings of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…This result is consistent with prior work reporting that toddlers with ASD combine communicative behaviours less often than peers (Parladé & Iverson, 2015; Shumway & Wetherby, 2009; Wetherby et al, 2004) and with evidence indicating that difficulties with coordination of communicative behaviours is characteristic of communication in ASD (Shumway & Wetherby, 2009; Stone, Ousley, Yoder, Hogan, & Hepburn, 1997). …”

“…HR infants were classified as language delayed (HR-LD) if they did not receive a diagnosis of ASD and either of the following criteria were met (Iverson et al, 2018; Parladé & Iverson, 2015; West, Leezenbaum, Northrup, & Iverson, in press): a) standardized scores on the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory, Words and Sentences (CDI-II; Fenson et al, 1993) or CDI-III at or below the 10th percentile at more than one time point between 18 and 36 months (e.g.,, Ellis Weismer & Evans, 2002; Heilmann, Ellis Weismer, Evans, & Hollar, 2005); or b) standardized score on the CDI-III at or below the 10th percentile and a standardized score on the Receptive and/or Expressive Language subscales of Mullen Scale of Early Learning (MSEL; Mullen, 1995) equal to or greater than 1.5 standard deviations below the mean at 36 months (e.g.,, Landa & Garrett-Mayer, 2006; Ozonoff et al, 2010). Based on these criteria, 15 infants (9 males) were classified as HR-LD.…”

“…For example, an infant may look at a desired but out of reach object, shift gaze to a caregiver, and vocalise to attract the attention of the caregiver while simultaneously reaching to request the object. It has been suggested that this type of coordination makes these behaviours more salient to the caregiver, and therefore potentially more successful in eliciting social responses (e.g., Parladé & Iverson, 2015; Iverson & Wozniak, 2016). Given the dearth of research examining joint attention and vocalisation production simultaneously, the present study focused on the development and coordination of these behaviours in HR infants across the second year.…”

Annual Research Review: The state of autism intervention science: progress, target psychological and biological mechanisms and future prospects

“…Alongside this, autism developmental science has identified variations from such normative patterns in young children at risk of or diagnosed with the condition. Thus increased parent directiveness (but not reduced responsiveness) is found in the latter part of the first year in infant siblings at risk of autism (Harker, Ibanez, Nguyen, Messinger, & Stone, ; Wan et al., ) along with reduced child attentiveness to parent, affective signalling and coordinated dyadic communication (Parlade & Iverson, ; Wan et al., ). Similar patterns are seen in established autism as well as in other developmental disabilities (Blacher, Baker, & Kaladjian, ; Doussard‐Roosevelt, Joe, Bazhenova, & Porges, ).…”

Early Gesture and Vocabulary Development in Infant Siblings of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…With regard to gesture, Parladé and Iverson (2015) examined longitudinal trajectories of production of gesture-vocalization coordinations (i.e., instances in which the two behaviors were produced with temporal overlap between them) sampled during naturalistic play sessions at home at 8, 10, 12, 14, and 18 months. They reported that while gesture-vocalization coordinations were initially delayed in both HR-LD and HR-ASD infants, by 12 months of age these coordinations had begun to emerge in HR-LD infants and grew at a rate comparable to those of HR infants with neither an ASD nor an LD diagnosis (HR-No Diagnosis; HR-ND) and of a group of infants with a typically-developing older sibling and no family history of ASD (Low Risk infants; LR).…”