Development of Vocal Coordination between Caregivers and Infants at Heightened Biological Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder
Recent findings suggest impaired motor skill development during infancy in children later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, it remains unclear whether infants at high familial risk for ASD would benefit from early interventions targeting the motor domain. The current study investigated this issue by providing 3-month-old infants at high familial risk for ASD with training experiences aimed at facilitating independent reaching. A group of 17 high-risk (HR) infants received 2 weeks of scaffolded reaching experiences using “sticky mittens,” and was compared to 72 low-risk (LR) infants experiencing the same or alternative training procedures. Results indicate that HR infants – just like LR infants – show an increase in grasping activity following “sticky mittens” training. In contrast to LR infants, evidence that motor training encouraged a preference for faces in HR infants was inconclusive.
Keywords: autism spectrum disorders; grasping; infancy; motor development; sticky mittens.
Children’s early motor skills are critical for development across language, social, and cognitive domains, and warrant close examination. However, examiner-administered motor assessments are time consuming and expensive. Parent-report questionnaires offer an efficient alternative, but validity of parent report is unclear and only few motor questionnaires exist. In this report, we use cross-sectional and longitudinal data to investigate the validity of parent report in comparison to two examiner-administered measures (Mullen Scales of Early Learning, MSEL; Peabody Developmental Motor Scales, PDMS-2), and introduce a new parent-report measure called the Early Motor Questionnaire (EMQ). Results indicate strong correlations between parent report on the EMQ and a child’s age, robust concurrent and predictive validity of parent report with both the MSEL and PDMS-2, and good test-retest reliability of parent report on the EMQ. Together, our findings support the conclusion that parents provide dependable accounts of early motor and cognitive development.
Keywords: Autism; Motor development; Parent report; Questionnaire.
The Early Autism Risk Longitudinal Investigation (EARLI), an ongoing study of a risk-enriched pregnancy cohort, examines genetic and environmental risk factors for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). We simulated the potential effects of both measurement error (ME) in exposures and misclassification of ASD-related phenotype (assessed as Autism Observation Scale for Infants (AOSI) scores) on measures of association generated under this study design. We investigated the impact on the power to detect true associations with exposure and the false positive rate (FPR) for a non-causal correlate of exposure (X2, r=0.7) for continuous AOSI score (linear model) versus dichotomised AOSI (logistic regression) when the sample size (n), degree of ME in exposure, and strength of the expected (true) OR (eOR)) between exposure and AOSI varied. Exposure was a continuous variable in all linear models and dichotomised at one SD above the mean in logistic models. Simulations reveal complex patterns and suggest that: (1) There was attenuation of associations that increased with eOR and ME; (2) The FPR was considerable under many scenarios; and (3) The FPR has a complex dependence on the eOR, ME and model choice, but was greater for logistic models. The findings will stimulate work examining cost-effective strategies to reduce the impact of ME in realistic sample sizes and affirm the importance for EARLI of investment in biological samples that help precisely quantify a wide range of environmental exposures.
Keywords: Epidemiological Methods; MCH; Research Design in Epidemiology.
Empirical studies have documented a variety of social abnormalities in infancy that indicate risk for later social and behavioral difficulties. There is very little research illustrating the presence of such behavioral vulnerabilities with frequent repeated measures, and the feasibility of designing interventions for improving social engagement in infants under one year of age. In the context of a multiple baseline research design, three young infants, ages 4, 7, and 9 months referred for concerns about social engagement were assessed for affect, social interest, eye contact avoidance, and response to name. Additionally, the feasibility of implementing an intervention to target social behaviors was examined. Results demonstrated that: (1) consistently low or erratic levels of social behavior were evident throughout the baseline assessment period; (2) these patterns could be improved with a brief intervention (a modified Pivotal Response Treatment) showing an immediate increase and stability of social engagement; and (3) social engagement remained at a stable and high level at follow-up. The results are discussed in terms of implications of early assessment and intervention for clinical populations, including infants with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Keywords: autism spectrum disorder; early intervention; infants; social intervention.
Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) is an empirically validated behavioral treatment for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The purpose of the current study was to assess the efficacy of PRT for ten cognitively-able preschool-aged children with ASD in the context of a short-duration (4-month) treatment model. Most research on PRT used individual behavioral goals as outcome measures, but the current study utilized standardized assessments of broader-based social communication and adaptive skills. The children made substantial gains; however, magnitude and consistency of response across measures were variable. The results provide additional support for the efficacy of PRT as well as evidence for improvements in higher-order social communication and adaptive skill development within the context of a short-duration PRT model.
Previous work has demonstrated that patterns of social attention hold predictive value for language development in typically developing infants. The goal of this research was to explore how patterns of attention in autistic, language delayed, and typically developing children relate to early word learning and language abilities. We tracked patterns of eye movements to faces and objects while children watched videos of a woman teaching them a series of new words. Subsequent test trials measured participants’ recognition of these novel word-object pairings. Results indicated that greater attention to the speaker’s mouth was related to higher scores on standardized measures of language development for autistic and typically developing children (but not for language delayed children). This effect was mediated by age for typically developing, but not autistic children. When effects of age were controlled for, attention to the mouth among language delayed participants was negatively correlated with standardized measures of language learning. Attention to the speaker’s mouth and eyes while she was teaching the new words was also predictive of faster recognition of those words among autistic children. These results suggest that language delays among children with autism may be driven in part by aberrant social attention, and that the mechanisms underlying these delays may differ from those in language delayed participants without autism.
Keywords: attention to faces; autism spectrum disorders; eye tracking; language development; word learning.
Atypical motor behaviors are common among children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, little is known about onset and functional implications of differences in early motor development among infants later diagnosed with ASD. Two prospective experiments were conducted to investigate motor skills among 6-month-olds at increased risk (high risk) for ASD (N1 = 129; N2 = 46). Infants were assessed using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) and during toy play. Across both experiments, high-risk infants exhibited less mature object manipulation in a highly structured (MSEL) context and reduced grasping activity in an unstructured (free-play) context than infants with no family history of ASD. Longitudinal assessments suggest that between 6 and 10 months, grasping activity increases in high-risk infants.