Autism spectrum disorders in children

Overview "Parenting self-efficacy, i.e. the expectations caregivers have about their abilities to successfully parent their children, has been shown to predict parental ability to cope with the unique challenges of raising a child with ASD (Pastor-Cerezuela et al., 2016; Kuhn & Carter, 2006). Despite high parental participation requirements, little research has investigated the impact of a child's therapy programming on parental confidence. This study assessed the effects of participation- and...

Overview "The language expression of children on the autism spectrum has often been described as atypical or unusual. However, little is known about how this unconventional use of language changes over time and how it may relate to adult outcomes. This qualitative study provides a longitudinal language analysis of seven unconventional language features in three individuals across the spectrum. Video recordings of participants at three time points were transcribed and coded for each linguistic...

Overview "This qualitative study explored cultural perspectives and needs of bilingual, Latinx caregivers with children on the autism spectrum through conversations, with their children's Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs). The purpose was to examine the perspectives of both of these groups, through dyadic interviews, and how they mutually informed one another. Two dyads (mothers and SLPs) participated, completing background questionnaires, dyadic interviews, and post-interview written reflections....

Overview "Typically-developing (TD) preschool-age children ask questions competently, but despite nearly identical maternal input, question-asking remains sparse for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Current literature fails to describe the pragmatic functions served by the questions of children with ASD and their mothers. This study investigated the similarities and differences between two groups (one TD and one with ASD) of preschool-age children in the frequency and function of...

Overview "Numerous studies have reported that "useful speech" at age 5 predicts outcomes in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but this skill has been vaguely defined. This study investigates which specific aspects of expressive language in 5-year-olds with ASD best predict adult language outcomes. Language samples from 5-year-olds enrolled in a longitudinal project (e.g., Lord et al., 2006) were transcribed and coded for spoken language features. Nonverbal IQ (NVIQ), noun diversity,...

Overview "The current study investigated the frequency, content, and development of question-asking in typically developing (TD) children and children with ASD through an online survey of 145 caregivers of children under 6 years old. Children with ASD were found to lag behind TD peers in both frequency and proportion of questions asked. Children with ASD were reported to ask more closed-ended (yes/no) questions as compared to more open-ended wh-questions. In exploring question function, differences...

Overview "Verbs representing mental states are syntactically complex because they may occur with sentential complements, which are phrases that are independently grammatical sentences. Considering evidence that children on the autism spectrum often demonstrate delays with mental state language but relative strengths in language form, the present study investigated the relationship between mental state verb and sentential complement production by 9-year-old children on the autism spectrum. Language...

Overview "The current study explored the role of overheard speech on first-and second-person pronoun mastery in children with ASD. Seventy-four caregivers of children with ASD (aged 2;2-5;11) participated in an online caregiver survey to measure overheard speech and pronoun mastery. Results suggested higher access to overheard speech was associated with greater mastery of the pronouns me, my, you, and your. Logistic regressions confirmed the role of overheard speech for the pronouns me, my, and you....

Overview "Children with a dual diagnosis of hearing loss and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may benefit from receiving a different receptive language modality than the modality they use for expressive language, though it is often challenging to determine and implement an optimal mode of communication.. This study was completed to better understand (1) the receptive and expressive communication modalities reported for children with a dual diagnosis, (2) the appropriateness of these communication...

Overview "Throughout typical development, children rely on perceptual, social, and linguistic cues to learn words (Hollich, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff, 2000). Imageability quantifies the perceptual salience of a word as the ease in which it evokes a mental image. While imageability is a strong predictor for word acquisition in typically developing (TD) children, little is known about the effects of imageability in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study uses secondary data analyses...

Overview "Children with autism spectrum disorder often use unconventional language (e.g., echolalia, stereotyped speech). However, based on the existing literature, it remains unclear whether unconventional language is best understood as a marker of developmental achievement or a problematic behavior. The present investigation is comprised of three smaller studies, each using an existing longitudinal dataset. Study 1 revealed that young children with high levels of clinician-observed unconventional...