Courtney E. Venker

Increasing verbal responsiveness in parents of children with autism:a pilot study:

Correlational studies have revealed a positive relationship between parent verbal responsiveness and language outcomes in children with autism. We investigated whether parents of young children on the autism spectrum could learn and implement the specific categories of verbal responsiveness that have been suggested to facilitate language development. Parents were taught to increase their verbal responsiveness in the context of a short-term language intervention that included group parent education sessions, as well as individual and small-group coaching sessions of parent–child play interactions. Parents in the treatment group increased their use of comments that: described their child’s focus of attention; interpreted or expanded child communication acts; and prompted child communication. Preliminary treatment effects were also noted in children’s prompted and spontaneous communication. These results support the use of parent-mediated interventions targeting verbal responsiveness to facilitate language development and communication in young children with autism.

Lexical and Grammatical Skills in Toddlers on the Autism Spectrum Compared to Late Talking Toddlers

This study compared language development in 30-month-old toddlers on the autism spectrum and 25-month-old late talking toddlers without autism. Groups were matched on overall productive vocabulary (and nonverbal cognition was controlled) in order to compare language acquisition patterns related to vocabulary composition and early lexical–grammatical relationships. Findings revealed that semantic categories of words—including psychological state terms—used by toddlers on the autism spectrum were very similar to those of late talkers. Both groups were equivalent with respect to grammatical complexity and proportion of toddlers combining words, though late talkers displayed a relatively stronger association between lexical–grammatical abilities. These tentative findings are consistent with a dimensional account of early, core linguistic abilities across different populations of children with language delay.

Individual Differences in the Real-Time Comprehension of Children with ASD

Many children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) demonstrate deficits in language comprehension, but little is known about how they process spoken language as it unfolds. Real‐time lexical comprehension is associated with language and cognition in children without ASD, suggesting that this may also be the case for children with ASD. This study adopted an individual differences approach to characterizing real‐time comprehension of familiar words in a group of 34 three‐ to six‐year‐olds with ASD. The looking‐while‐listening paradigm was employed; it measures online accuracy and latency through language‐mediated eye movements and has limited task demands. On average, children demonstrated comprehension of the familiar words, but considerable variability emerged. Children with better accuracy were faster to process the familiar words. In combination, processing speed and comprehension on a standardized language assessment explained 63% of the variance in online accuracy. Online accuracy was not correlated with autism severity or maternal education, and nonverbal cognition did not explain unique variance. Notably, online accuracy at age 5½ was related to vocabulary comprehension 3 years earlier. The words typically learned earliest in life were processed most quickly. Consistent with a dimensional view of language abilities, these findings point to similarities in patterns of language acquisition in typically developing children and those with ASD. Overall, our results emphasize the value of examining individual differences in real‐time language comprehension in this population. We propose that the looking‐while‐listening paradigm is a sensitive and valuable methodological tool that can be applied across many areas of autism research. Autism Res 2013, ●●: ●●–●●.

An Open Conversation on Using Eye-Gaze Methods in Studies of Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

PURPOSE Eye-gaze methods have the potential to advance the study of neurodevelopmental disorders. Despite their increasing use, challenges arise in using these methods with individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders and in reporting sufficient methodological detail such that the resulting research is replicable and interpretable. METHOD This tutorial presents key considerations involved in designing and conducting eye-gaze studies for individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders and proposes conventions for reporting the results of such studies. RESULTS Methodological decisions (e.g., whether to use automated eye tracking or manual coding, implementing strategies to scaffold childrens performance, defining valid trials) have cascading effects on the conclusions drawn from eye-gaze data. Research reports that include specific information about procedures, missing data, and selection of participants will facilitate interpretation and replication. CONCLUSIONS Eye-gaze methods provide exciting opportunities for studying neurodevelopmental disorders. Open discussion of the issues presented in this tutorial will improve the pace of productivity and the impact of advances in research on neurodevelopmental disorders.

Fast Mapping in Late-Talking Toddlers.

This study investigated fast mapping in late-talking (LT) toddlers and toddlers with normal language (NL) development matched on age, nonverbal cognition, and maternal education. The fast mapping task included novel object labels and familiar words. The LT group performed significantly worse than the NL group on novel word comprehension and production, as well as familiar word production. For both groups, fast mapping performance was associated with concurrent language ability and later language outcomes. A post hoc analysis of phonotactic probability (PP) and neighborhood density (ND) suggested that the majority of NL toddlers displayed optimal learning of the nonword with low PP/ND. The LT group did not display the same sensitivity to PP/ND characteristics as the NL group.

Spoken word recognition in children with autism spectrum disorder: The role of visual disengagement

Deficits in visual disengagement are one of the earliest emerging differences in infants who are later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Although researchers have speculated that deficits in visual disengagement could have negative effects on the development of children with autism spectrum disorder, we do not know which skills are disrupted or how this disruption takes place. As a first step in understanding this issue, this study investigated the relationship between visual disengagement and a critical skill in early language development: spoken word recognition. Participants were 18 children with autism spectrum disorder (aged 4–7 years). Consistent with our predictions, children with poorer visual disengagement were slower and less accurate to process familiar words; disengagement explained over half of the variance in spoken word recognition. Visual disengagement remained uniquely associated with spoken word recognition after accounting for children’s vocabulary size and age. These findings align with a recently proposed developmental model in which poor visual disengagement decreases the speed and accuracy of real-time spoken word recognition in children with autism spectrum disorder—which, in turn, may negatively affect their language development.