Gabriel Levi

An Evaluation of Early Development in Children with Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders from Home Movies: Preliminary Findings

Family videos of 10 children later diagnosed as having autism or pervasive developmental disorders were analysed using a newly devised instrument. The checklist comprises 3 0 individual items and 20 functional categories. It evaluates behaviours in three areas: social interaction, communication and language, functional and symbolic play. The age range covered by home movies was divided into four periods (0-6, 6-12, 12-18 and 18-24 months) and analysed accordingly. The checklist data allow for the derivation of a general developmental profile as well as individual profiles. The most common profile was one in which children made progress from the first to the second or third age period, whereas from the second or third to the fourth period they showed a loss of previously mastered behaviours. The loss was statistically significant in socio-interactive behaviours, less evident in communication/language, and moderate in the area of action schemes and play. Mutual attention (dyadic eye contact), attachment behaviours, emotional reactions and vocalizations were present in almost all the children studied. On the other hand, communicative gestures (pointing, showing, ritualized requests), pretend play and conventional social games were rarely observed. The implications of these results for early diagnosis as well as for theories of early development in autism and severe developmental disorders are briefly discussed.

Language Disorders and Prognosis for Reading Disabilities in Developmental Age

2 groups of language-disordered children were studied regarding the reading levels reached at the end of the first year of school. The first group was composed by children with language retardation mainly on phonological level, the second group was composed by children with retardation also on semantic-syntactic level. The results confirmed the strong association between reading disability and language disorders and yielded significant differences between the two groups: the reading achievement seemed to be associated mainly to semantic and syntactic competences.

Abnormalities of visual evoked potentials by checkerboards in children with specific reading disability

Visual evoked potentials by checkerboards of varying check sizes were recorded in the two hemispheres of 16 specific reading disabled and 8 normal children. In most of the disabled subjects a gross hemisphere asymmetry was assessed, while in the control group the usual evoked potential symmetry was observed. In some disabled subjects the evoked potentials had a larger amplitude in the right hemisphere, while in others the amplitude was larger in the left hemisphere. In a small subgroup the evoked potentials were symmetrical, but they had a smaller amplitude than in the control subjects. The results, giving evidence of a dysfunction in basic visual processing, are discussed in the context of current literature on clinical subgroups and the interhemispheric relationship in the dyslexic syndrome.

When words lead to solutions: Executive function deficits in preschool children with specific language impairment

Several studies indicate that school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) have difficulties with tasks that rely on executive functions. Whether executive function deficits in children with SLI emerge during preschool age remains unclear. Our aim was to fill this gap by investigating executive function performances in two age groups of preschoolers with and without SLI. Children with SLI (N=60; young: 53.6±5.3 months; old: 65.4±3.8 months) and age-matched control children (N=58) were tested for problem-representation ability, using the Flexible Item Selection Task (FIST), rule-use skills, using a Stroop-like Day-Night test (D/N), and planning skills, using the Tower of London test (TOL). Older children performed better than younger children did across tasks. Children with SLI had poorer performance, compared to typically developing children, on measures of problem representation, planning skills, and use of rules. Our results clearly indicate that executive function impairment is evident during the preschool period. Although old children with SLI performed better than young children with SLI, their performances were still poor, compared to those of control peers. These findings suggest that children with SLI have altered executive functioning at 53.6 months.

Cognitive and Linguistic Strategies in Children with Reading Disabilities in an Oral Storytelling Test

Three groups of children: 18 dyslexic children; 18 children with reading retardation: 18 normal children (mean age = 9 years), were given an oral storytelling test. The results point out a clear--cut differentiation between the three groups in their overall performance and the presence of atypical linguistic strategies in dyslexic children. The data are discussed in relation to linguistic difficulties in dyslexic children.

Metaphor comprehension in autistic spectrum disorders: Case studies of two high-functioning children

This article presents case studies on metaphor comprehension in two boys with high-functioning autistic spectrum disorder, aged 9;1 (9 years, 1 month) and 8;11. The participants were assessed twice, before and after an intervention program aimed at improving their social skills. The focus of the article is on the specific patterns exhibited by each child in a test of metaphor comprehension that elicits verbal explanation of metaphors, and is targeted at 4–6-year-old typically developing children. The two children had age-appropriate cognitive and verbal abilities, as measured by WISC-III and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. At the first assessment, performance on both children was within the average range of typically developing 5-year-old children, but they differed in their patterns of response. At the second time of assessment both the children’s performance had improved, but each in a different manner. The discussion reconsiders the qualitative aspects emerging from the assessments performed at the two time points of the study, raises theoretical issues about metaphor comprehension, and points to possible implications for diagnosis and intervention.

Depressive Disorder in Preschool Children: Patterns of Affective Organization

In the present study the authors attempt to identify the pattern of depressive problems in children aged 3 to 6 years by employing a new rating scale (The Preschool Children Depression Checklist). Depressive symptoms were expressed in the form of 32 questions that cover an array of depressive behaviors as manifested in this age range. A factor analysis was carried out on 156 checklists submitted to the teachers of the control group in order to identify early affective behavioral patterns of the depressive disorder. Results confirmed the hypothesis that a coherent emotional structure underpins childrens manifest behaviors. Three factors were empirically derived. These factors seem to be particularly important since statistical comparison showed significant differences among factor scores of a sample of children who met diagnosis of depression, a sample of children who met diagnosis of anxiety disorder, a sample of control children.

Grasping the world through words: From action to linguistic production of verbs in early childhood

We investigated whether the bodily-mediated production of verbs emerges earlier than verb recognition and oral production during early language acquisition. Children (aged 18-22, 23-27, 28-32, and 33-37 months) viewed animated pictures representing actions related to transitive and intransitive verbs and were asked to (i) orally indicate the verb presented, (ii) recognize the target verb among other verbs, and (iii) perform the actions corresponding to the target verb enunciated by the experimenter. Children 18-22 months showed a capacity to enact the verbs, while their recognition and oral production abilities were not comparably developed. Until 27 months of age, children produced more transitive than intransitive verbs across tasks. The gap between verb recognition and verb oral production was found in all ages tested. This is the first study to directly demonstrate that the ability to produce verbs, especially transitive verbs, via overt body actions emerges ontogenetically earlier than recognition and oral production.

Specific language disorders in twins during childhood.

The delay in the development of the language often found in twins is usually interpreted as being strictly connected with the twinning situation and on the assumption that a model of verbal, tendentially cryptophasic, communication would more easily exist between twins. Two types of language pathology in twins, diverging from this classic framework, are presented: (1) Developmental dyslalia (or developmental dysarthria); in these cases no abnormality could be found in the modality of verbal communication between the cotwin; (2) developmental dysphasia; in these cases not only no tendency toward cryptophasia was observed, but indeed the verbal communication between the twins was markedly reduced. These two types of language disorders, as well as the classic one, are discussed in the light of a neurolinguistic interpretation.

Profile of the linguistic and metalinguistic abilities of a gifted child with autism spectrum disorder: A case study

This study analyses the case of a gifted child (9;6 year) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who had a particularly high verbal IQ (146) and a specific cognitive, linguistic, and metalinguistic profile. A description of some salient behavioral characteristics of the child is provided. A metalinguistic ability test assessing metagrammatical, metasemantic, and metaphonological abilities and a metaphor comprehension test were administered. Both tests place high value on justifications of responses, which permits investigators to grasp different levels of metalinguistic awareness. The child gave poor metalinguistic responses in subtests assessing metasemantic abilities, contrary to subtests assessing metagrammatical and metaphonological abilities. These discrepant results are interpreted in terms of this child’s specific difficulty with ‘open’ linguistic systems, such as semantics, in spite of his high ‘closed’ language capabilities. The discussion highlights the importance of assessing the meta-level of the verbal competencies of gifted children with ASD.