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Concurrent Social Communication Predictors of Expressive Language in Minimally Verbal Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Abstract

Numerous studies have investigated the predictors of language in pre-verbal toddlers and verbally fluent children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study investigated the concurrent relations among expressive language and a set of empirically-selected social communication variables—joint attention, imitation, and play—in a unique sample of 37 minimally verbal (MV) children and adolescents with ASD. Results revealed that imitation and play were significantly correlated with expressive language, even when controlling for non-verbal IQ, but joint attention was not. Imitation was the only predictor variable to reach significance within the regression model. Findings demonstrate that predictors of expressive language vary for subpopulations of the autism spectrum, and have broader implications for intervention design for older, MV individuals with ASD.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all of the participants and their families, as well as colleagues, staff, and students at the Center for Autism Research Excellence who assisted with recruitment and data collection, especially Robert Joseph, Karen Chenausky, Briana Brukilacchio, Anne Yoder, and Tim Brown, who provided advice on the statistical methods. MP participated in study design, performed statistical analyses and interpretation of data, assisted with video coding, and drafted the manuscript. DPS participated in study design and coordination, and revised the manuscript critically for intellectual content. SM assisted with data acquisition and video coding. BE assisted with data acquisition and video coding. HTF conceived of the study, participated in its design and interpretation of data, and revised the manuscript critically for intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This study was funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (P50DC013027).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Meredith Pecukonis, Daniela Plesa Skwerer & Helen Tager-Flusberg

  2. Center for Autism Research Excellence, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Meredith Pecukonis, Daniela Plesa Skwerer, Brady Eggleston, Steven Meyer & Helen Tager-Flusberg

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  1. Meredith Pecukonis
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Correspondence to Meredith Pecukonis.

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Appendices

Appendix A

See Table 7.

Table 7 Coding scheme for assessing diversity of spontaneous play behaviors
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Appendix B

See Table 8.

Table 8 Coding scheme for the joint attention measure from the ESCS (JAMES)
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Appendix C

See Table 9.

Table 9 Coding scheme for the elicited imitation battery
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Appendix D

See Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Frequency distributions for NVIQ, play, imitation, IJA, IBR, RJA, and expressive language/number of different words used

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Pecukonis, M., Plesa Skwerer, D., Eggleston, B. et al. Concurrent Social Communication Predictors of Expressive Language in Minimally Verbal Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 49, 3767–3785 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04089-8

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