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Lozano I, Belinchón M, Campos R. Sensitivity to temporal synchrony and selective attention in audiovisual speech in infants at elevated likelihood for autism: A preliminary longitudinal study. Infant Behav Dev 2024; 76:101973. [PMID: 38941721 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2024.101973] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2024] [Revised: 06/13/2024] [Accepted: 06/14/2024] [Indexed: 06/30/2024]
Abstract
Autism Spectrum Disorder is a highly heritable condition characterized by sociocommunicative difficulties, frequently entailing language atypicalities that extend to infants with a familial history of autism. The developmental mechanisms underlying these difficulties remain unknown. Detecting temporal synchrony between the lip movements and the auditory speech of a talking face and selectively attending to the mouth support typical early language acquisition. This preliminary eye-tracking study investigated whether these two fundamental mechanisms atypically function in infant siblings. We longitudinally tracked the trajectories of infants at elevated and low-likelihood for autism in these two abilities at 4, 8, and 12 months (n = 29). We presented two talking faces (synchronous and asynchronous) while recording infants' gaze to the talker's eyes and mouth. We found that infants detected temporal asynchronies in talking faces at 12 months regardless of group. However, compared to their typically developing peers, infants with an elevated likelihood of autism showed reduced attention to the mouth at the end of the first year and no variations in their interest to this area across time. Our findings provide preliminary evidence on a potentially atypical trajectory of reduced mouth-looking in audiovisual speech during the first year in infant siblings, with potential cascading consequences for language development, thus contributing to domain-general accounts of emerging autism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Itziar Lozano
- Department of Basic Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain; Neurocognitive Development Lab, Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.
| | - Mercedes Belinchón
- Department of Basic Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
| | - Ruth Campos
- Department of Basic Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
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2
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Boorom O, Alviar C, Zhang Y, Muñoz VA, Kello CT, Lense MD. Child language and autism diagnosis impact hierarchical temporal structure of parent-child vocal interactions in early childhood. Autism Res 2022; 15:2099-2111. [PMID: 36056678 PMCID: PMC9995224 DOI: 10.1002/aur.2804] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/11/2022] [Accepted: 08/15/2022] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
Timing is critical to successful social interactions. The temporal structure of dyadic vocal interactions emerges from the rhythm, timing, and frequency of each individuals' vocalizations and reflects how the dyad dynamically organizes and adapts during an interaction. This study investigated the temporal structure of vocal interactions longitudinally in parent-child dyads of typically developing (TD) infants (n = 49; 9-18 months; 48% male) and toddlers with ASD (n = 23; 27.2 ± 5.0 months; 91.3% male) to identify how developing language and social skills impact the temporal dynamics of the interaction. Acoustic hierarchical temporal structure (HTS), a measure of the nested clustering of acoustic events across multiple timescales, was measured in free play interactions using Allan Factor. HTS reflects a signal's temporal complexity and variability, with greater HTS indicating reduced flexibility of the dyadic system. Child expressive language significantly predicted HTS (ß = -0.2) longitudinally across TD infants, with greater dyadic HTS associated with lower child language skills. ASD dyads exhibited greater HTS (i.e., more rigid temporal structure) than nonverbal matched (d = 0.41) and expressive language matched TD dyads (d = 0.28). Increased HTS in ASD dyads occurred at timescales >1 s, suggesting greater structuring of pragmatic aspects of interaction. Results provide a new window into how language development and social reciprocity serve as constraints to shape parent-child interaction dynamics and showcase a novel automated approach to characterizing vocal interactions across multiple timescales during early childhood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Olivia Boorom
- Department of Speech-Language-Hearing: Sciences and Disorders, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Camila Alviar
- Department of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
- Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California, Merced, Merced, CA, USA
| | - Yumeng Zhang
- Department of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
- Department of Medicine, Health, and Society, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
| | - Valerie A. Muñoz
- Department of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA
| | - Christopher T. Kello
- Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California, Merced, Merced, CA, USA
| | - Miriam D. Lense
- Department of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
- Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA
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Belteki Z, Lumbreras R, Fico K, Haman E, Junge C. The Vocabulary of Infants with an Elevated Likelihood and Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Infant Language Studies Using the CDI and MSEL. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH 2022; 19:ijerph19031469. [PMID: 35162492 PMCID: PMC8834732 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph19031469] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/29/2021] [Revised: 01/14/2022] [Accepted: 01/21/2022] [Indexed: 01/27/2023]
Abstract
Diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are typically accompanied by atypical language development, which can be noticeable even before diagnosis. The siblings of children diagnosed with ASD are at elevated likelihood for ASD diagnosis and have been shown to have higher prevalence rates than the general population. In this paper, we systematically reviewed studies looking at the vocabulary size and development of infants with autism. One inclusion criterion was that infants were grouped either pre-diagnostically as elevated or typical likelihood or post-diagnostically as ASD or without ASD. This review focused on studies that tested infants up to 24 months of age and that assessed vocabulary either via the parent-completed MacArthur–Bates Communicative Developmental Inventory (CDI) or the clinician-administered Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL). Our systematic search yielded 76 studies. A meta-analysis was performed on these studies that compared the vocabulary scores of EL and TL infants pre-diagnostically and the scores of ASD and non-ASD infants post-diagnostically. Both pre- and post-diagnostically, it was found that the EL and ASD infants had smaller vocabularies than their TL and non-ASD peers, respectively. The effect sizes across studies were heterogenous, prompting additional moderator analyses of age and sub-group analyses of the language measure used (CDI or MSEL) as potential moderators of the effect size. Age was found to be a moderator both in the pre- and post-diagnostical groups, however, language measure was not a moderator in either diagnostic group. Interpretations and future research directions are discussed based on these findings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zsofia Belteki
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands;
- Correspondence:
| | - Raquel Lumbreras
- Faculty of Medicine, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands;
| | - Kloe Fico
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University, 6525 XZ Nijmegen, The Netherlands;
| | - Ewa Haman
- Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, 00-927 Warsaw, Poland;
| | - Caroline Junge
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands;
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Chen F, Zhang H, Ding H, Wang S, Peng G, Zhang Y. Neural coding of formant-exaggerated speech and nonspeech in children with and without autism spectrum disorders. Autism Res 2021; 14:1357-1374. [PMID: 33792205 DOI: 10.1002/aur.2509] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/18/2020] [Revised: 03/09/2021] [Accepted: 03/16/2021] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
The presence of vowel exaggeration in infant-directed speech (IDS) may adapt to the age-appropriate demands in speech and language acquisition. Previous studies have provided behavioral evidence of atypical auditory processing towards IDS in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), while the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms remain unknown. This event-related potential (ERP) study investigated the neural coding of formant-exaggerated speech and nonspeech in 24 4- to 11-year-old children with ASD and 24 typically-developing (TD) peers. The EEG data were recorded using an alternating block design, in which each stimulus type (exaggerated/non-exaggerated sound) was presented with equal probability. ERP waveform analysis revealed an enhanced P1 for vowel formant exaggeration in the TD group but not in the ASD group. This speech-specific atypical processing in ASD was not found for the nonspeech stimuli which showed similar P1 enhancement in both ASD and TD groups. Moreover, the time-frequency analysis indicated that children with ASD showed differences in neural synchronization in the delta-theta bands for processing acoustic formant changes embedded in nonspeech. Collectively, the results add substantiating neurophysiological evidence (i.e., a lack of neural enhancement effect of vowel exaggeration) for atypical auditory processing of IDS in children with ASD, which may exert a negative effect on phonetic encoding and language learning. LAY SUMMARY: Atypical responses to motherese might act as a potential early marker of risk for children with ASD. This study investigated the neural responses to such socially relevant stimuli in the ASD brain, and the results suggested a lack of neural enhancement responding to the motherese even in individuals without intellectual disability.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fei Chen
- School of Foreign Languages, Hunan University, Changsha, China.,Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience & Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China.,Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences & Center for Neurobehavioral Development, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
| | - Hao Zhang
- Speech-Language-Hearing Center, School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
| | - Hongwei Ding
- Speech-Language-Hearing Center, School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
| | - Suiping Wang
- School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Gang Peng
- Research Centre for Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience & Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Yang Zhang
- Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences & Center for Neurobehavioral Development, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA
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Early behavioral markers for neurodevelopmental disorders in the first 3 years of life: An overview of systematic reviews. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2020; 116:183-201. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.06.027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/30/2019] [Revised: 06/22/2020] [Accepted: 06/23/2020] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
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6
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Abstract
Endophenotypes are measurable markers of genetic vulnerability to current or future disorder. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is well-suited to be examined within an endophenotype framework given past and current emphases on the broader autism phenotype and early detection. We conducted a scoping review to identify potential socially-related endophenotypes of ASD. We focused on paradigms related to sociality (e.g., theory of mind (TOM), social attention), which comprise most of this literature. We integrated findings from traditional behavioral paradigms with brain-based measures (e.g., electroencephalography, functional magnetic resonance imaging). Broadly, infant research regarding social attention and responsivity (Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) domain of affiliation) and attention to faces and voices (social communication) finds consistent abnormality in vulnerable infant siblings. Several additional paradigms that have shown differences in vulnerable infants and young children include animacy perception tasks (perception and understanding of others), measures of recognition and response to familiar faces (attachment), and joint attention and false-belief tasks (understanding mental states). Research areas such as alexithymia (the perception and understanding of self), empathic responding, and vocal prosody may hold interest; however, challenges in measurement across populations and age ranges is a limiting factor. Future work should address sex differences and age dependencies, specificity to ASD, and heterogeneous genetic pathways to disorder within samples individuals with ASD and relatives.
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McFayden TC, Panneton RK, Bruce M, Taylor C. Exploring priming effects of social and non-social attention getters on older infants' preferences for infant-directed speech. Infant Behav Dev 2020; 59:101431. [PMID: 32142952 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101431] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2019] [Revised: 02/24/2020] [Accepted: 02/26/2020] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
In infant research, various auditory/visual events are often used as attention getters to orient infants to a screen and alert them to upcoming information for their detection, discrimination, and/or recognition. Importantly, the influence of attention-getters on infants' performance has rarely been systematically evaluated, even though these attention cues could be affecting subsequent information processing. This study investigated whether specific attention-getters could prime infants' preferences for infant-directed speech (IDS) compared to adult-directed speech (ADS). Both a non-social and a social prime were chosen with the prediction that the social prime would strengthen infants' attention to IDS on a subsequent trial, but the non-social prime would have no differential effect on subsequent attention to either speech type. A total of 20 12- to 18-month old infants were presented with either a nonsocial (rotating form + chimes) or social (smiling female + voice) prime in an infant-controlled, speech preference procedure with both IDS and ADS speech types. Given previous research, we predicted that infants would show significantly more attention on trials during which looking produced IDS, but that this preference would be significantly augmented for infants in the condition receiving a social attention-getter before each trial. Results did not bear out this prediction, although we found a consistent, robust preference for IDS. The results will be discussed in terms of why these attention getters did not affect subsequent processing of two very different speech types, and what future modifications may be necessary in order to examine roles of attention getters in affecting experimental outcomes in infancy research. A secondary benefit of the findings is that we empirically established a growing preference for IDS in infants as old as 18-months of age.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tyler C McFayden
- Virginia Tech, 460 Turner St NW Suite 207, Blacksburg, 24060, United States.
| | - Robin K Panneton
- Virginia Tech, 460 Turner St NW Suite 207, Blacksburg, 24060, United States
| | - Madeleine Bruce
- Virginia Tech, 460 Turner St NW Suite 207, Blacksburg, 24060, United States
| | - Caroline Taylor
- Virginia Tech, 460 Turner St NW Suite 207, Blacksburg, 24060, United States
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8
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Kover ST, Edmunds SR, Ellis Weismer S. Brief Report: Ages of Language Milestones as Predictors of Developmental Trajectories in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 2017; 46:2501-7. [PMID: 26936159 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-016-2756-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
Recognizing early risk markers in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is critical for timely diagnosis and intervention. The purpose of this study was to extend previous findings regarding language milestones to a longitudinal design, in which ages of expressive language milestones (i.e., first words, first phrases) could serve as predictors of developmental trajectories in a heterogeneous sample of young children with ASD (N = 98; age at first assessment: M = 32 months, SD = 5). Age of first words predicted trajectories of expressive language and adaptive skills; number of words predicted each outcome examined. Because these aspects of early language show promise as potential indicators of later functional outcomes, future research on developmental processes as they relate to individual differences will be particularly informative.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sara T Kover
- Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, 1417 N.E. 42nd St., Seattle, WA, 98105, USA.
| | - Sarah R Edmunds
- Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Susan Ellis Weismer
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.,Waisman Center, Madison, WI, USA
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Filipe MG, Watson L, Vicente SG, Frota S. Atypical preference for infant-directed speech as an early marker of autism spectrum disorders? A literature review and directions for further research. CLINICAL LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS 2017; 32:213-231. [PMID: 28727482 DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2017.1342694] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2017] [Accepted: 06/12/2017] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) refer to a complex group of neurodevelopmental disorders causing difficulties with communication and interpersonal relationships, as well as restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests. As early identification, diagnosis, and intervention provide better long-term outcomes, early markers of ASD have gained increased research attention. This review examines evidence that auditory processing enhanced by social interest, in particular auditory preference of speech directed towards infants and young children (i.e. infant-directed speech - IDS), may be an early marker of risk for ASD. Although this review provides evidence for IDS preference as, indeed, a potential early marker of ASD, the explanation for differences in IDS processing among children with ASD versus other children remains unclear, as are the implications of these impairments for later social-communicative development. Therefore, it is crucial to explore atypicalities in IDS processing early on development and to understand whether preferential listening to specific types of speech sounds in the first years of life may help to predict the impairments in social and language development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marisa G Filipe
- a Centro de Linguística, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa , Lisbon , Portugal
- b Universidade do Porto , Porto , Portugal
| | - Linda Watson
- c University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Chapel Hill , North Carolina , USA
| | | | - Sónia Frota
- a Centro de Linguística, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa , Lisbon , Portugal
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10
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Arunachalam S, Luyster RJ. The integrity of lexical acquisition mechanisms in autism spectrum disorders: A research review. Autism Res 2016; 9:810-28. [PMID: 26688218 PMCID: PMC4916034 DOI: 10.1002/aur.1590] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2015] [Accepted: 11/15/2015] [Indexed: 01/19/2023]
Abstract
Research on autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has rapidly expanded in recent years, yielding important developments in both theory and practice. While we have gained important insights into how children with ASD differ from typically developing (TD) children in terms of phenotypic features, less has been learned about if and how development in ASD differs from typical development in terms of underlying mechanisms of change. This article aims to provide a review of processes subserving lexical development in ASD, with the goal of identifying contributing factors to the heterogeneity of language outcomes in ASD. The focus is on available evidence of the integrity or disruption of these mechanisms in ASD, as well as their significance for vocabulary development; topics include early speech perception and preference, speech segmentation, word learning, and category formation. Significant gaps in the literature are identified and future directions are suggested. Autism Res 2016, 9: 810-828. © 2015 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sudha Arunachalam
- Dept. of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences, Boston University, 635 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215
| | - Rhiannon J. Luyster
- Communication Sciences and Disorders, Emerson College, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116
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11
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Crider A, Pillai A. The Neurobiological Basis for Social Affiliation in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Schizophrenia. Curr Behav Neurosci Rep 2016; 3:154-164. [DOI: 10.1007/s40473-016-0079-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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12
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Northrup JB, Iverson JM. Vocal Coordination During Early Parent-Infant Interactions Predicts Language Outcome in Infant Siblings of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. INFANCY 2015; 20:523-547. [PMID: 26345517 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12090] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
This study examined vocal coordination during mother-infant interactions in the infant siblings (high risk infants; HR) of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a population at heightened risk for developing language delays. Vocal coordination between mothers and HR infants was compared to a group of low risk (LR; no first- or second-degree relative with ASD) dyads, and used to predict later language development. Nine-month-old infants were videotaped at home playing with their mothers, and interactions were coded for the frequency and timing of vocalizations. Percent infant simultaneous speech was predictive of later language delay (LD), and dyads with LD infants were less coordinated with one another in average latency to respond than dyads with non-delayed (ND) infants. The degree of coordination between mothers and infants on this variable predicted a continuous measure of language development in the third year. This research underscores the importance of understanding early development in the context of interaction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jessie B Northrup
- University of Pittsburgh, 3419 Sennott Square, 210 South Bouquet St. Pittsburgh, PA 15232
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13
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Segal J, Newman RS. Infant Preferences for Structural and Prosodic Properties of Infant-Directed Speech in the Second Year of Life. INFANCY 2015. [DOI: 10.1111/infa.12077] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
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14
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Ference J, Curtin S. The Ability to Map Differentially Stressed Labels to Objects Predicts Language Development at 24 months in 12-month-olds at High Risk for Autism. INFANCY 2015. [DOI: 10.1111/infa.12074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
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15
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Seery A, Tager-Flusberg H, Nelson CA. Event-related potentials to repeated speech in 9-month-old infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder. J Neurodev Disord 2014; 6:43. [PMID: 25937843 PMCID: PMC4416338 DOI: 10.1186/1866-1955-6-43] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2014] [Accepted: 11/04/2014] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Atypical neural responses to repeated auditory and linguistic stimuli have been reported both in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their first-degree relatives. Recent work suggests that the younger siblings of children with ASD have atypical event-related potentials (ERPs) to repeated tones at 9 months of age; however, the functional significance is unclear, and it is unknown whether this atypicality is also present in response to linguistic stimuli. Methods We analyzed ERPs to repetitive and deviant consonant-vowel stimuli at 9 months in 35 unaffected high-risk-for-autism (HRA) infant siblings of children with ASD and 45 low-risk control (LRC) infants. We examined a positive component, the P150, over frontal and central electrode sites and investigated the relationships between this component and later behavior. Results Over frontal electrodes, HRA infants had larger-amplitude ERPs to repetitions of the standard than LRC infants, whereas ERPs to the deviant did not differ between HRA and LRC infants. Furthermore, for HRA infants, the amplitude of ERPs to the standards was positively correlated with later language ability. Conclusions Our work suggests that atypical ERPs to repeated speech during infancy are a possible endophenotype of ASD but that this atypicality is associated with beneficial, rather than disordered, language development. Potential mechanisms driving these relationships and implications for development are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anne Seery
- Department of Pediatrics, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016 USA
| | - Helen Tager-Flusberg
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215 USA
| | - Charles A Nelson
- Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02215 USA ; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA
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Ference J, Curtin S. Attention to lexical stress and early vocabulary growth in 5-month-olds at risk for autism spectrum disorder. J Exp Child Psychol 2013; 116:891-903. [PMID: 24077464 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2013.08.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/06/2013] [Revised: 08/11/2013] [Accepted: 08/12/2013] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Typically developing infants differentiate strong-weak (trochaic) and weak-strong (iambic) stress patterns by 2months of age. The ability to discriminate rhythmical patterns, such as lexical stress, has been argued to facilitate language development, suggesting that a difficulty in discriminating stress might affect early word learning as reflected in vocabulary size. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulty in correctly producing lexical stress, yet little is known about how they perceive it. The current study tested 5-month-old infants with typically developing older siblings (SIBS-TD) and infants with an older sibling diagnosed with ASD (SIBS-A) on their ability to differentiate the trochaic and iambic stress patterns of the word form gaba. SIBS-TD infants showed an increased interest in attention to the trochaic stress pattern, which was also positively correlated with vocabulary comprehension at 12months of age. In contrast, SIBS-A infants attended equally to these stress patterns, although this was unrelated to later vocabulary size.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer Ference
- Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4 Canada
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Curtin S, Vouloumanos A. Speech preference is associated with autistic-like behavior in 18-months-olds at risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 2013; 43:2114-20. [PMID: 23334808 PMCID: PMC3648614 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-013-1759-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
We examined whether infants' preference for speech at 12 months is associated with autistic-like behaviors at 18 months in infants who are at increased risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) because they have an older sibling diagnosed with ASD and in low-risk infants. Only low-risk infants listened significantly longer to speech than to nonspeech at 12 months. In both groups, relative preference for speech correlated positively with general cognitive ability at 12 months. However, in high-risk infants only, preference for speech was associated with autistic-like behavior at 18 months, while in low-risk infants, preference for speech correlated with language abilities. This suggests that in children at risk for ASD an atypical species-specific bias for speech may underlie atypical social development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Suzanne Curtin
- Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada.
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