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Early Language Profiles in Infants at High-Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Abstract

Many preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) present relative lack of receptive advantage over concurrent expressive language. Such profile emergence was investigated longitudinally in 54 infants at high-risk (HR) for ASD and 50 low-risk controls, with three language measures taken across four visits (around 7, 14, 24, 38 months). HR infants presented three outcome subgroups: ASD, other atypicality, and typical development. Reduced receptive vocabulary advantage was observed in HR infants by 14 months, but was maintained to 24 months only in ASD/other atypicality outcome subgroups while typically-developing HR infants regained a more normative profile. Few group differences appeared on a direct assessment of language and parent-reported functional communication. Processes of early development toward ASD outcome and in intermediate phenotypes are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the BASIS families for their participation in this study, and Carina de Klerk, Kathryn Frame, Besterah Kultu, and Emma Tait for their research assistance. Many thanks also to three anonymous reviewers for their comments on a previous version of this manuscript. The research is supported by The UK Medical Research Council (G0701484) to M. H. Johnson, the BASIS funding consortium led by Autistica (www.basisnetwork.org) and a grant from Autism Speaks (1292). Further support for some authors is from COST action BM1004.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre, School of Psychological Science, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, 3086, Australia

    Kristelle Hudry

  2. Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, UK

    Susie Chandler, Greg Pasco & Tony Charman

  3. Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK

    Teodora Gliga, Mayada Elsabbagh & Mark H. Johnson

  4. Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Mayada Elsabbagh

  5. Department of Biostatistics, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, UK

    Rachael Bedford

Authors
  1. Kristelle Hudry
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  2. Susie Chandler
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  3. Rachael Bedford
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  4. Greg Pasco
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  5. Teodora Gliga
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  6. Mayada Elsabbagh
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  7. Mark H. Johnson
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  8. Tony Charman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kristelle Hudry.

Additional information

This study was conducted for the BASIS Team.

The members of the BASIS Team are provided in “Appendix 1”.

Appendices

Appendix 1: The BASIS Team

The BASIS Team in alphabetical order: Simon Baron-Cohen, Patrick Bolton, Janice Fernandes, Holly Garwood, Leslie Tucker, and Agnes Volein.

Appendix 2

See Tables 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Table 6 Mean (and SD) receptive and expressive domain scores (untransformed data) for HR diagnostic subgroups (with typical, atypical, and ASD outcome) across three language measures and three/four visits
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Hudry, K., Chandler, S., Bedford, R. et al. Early Language Profiles in Infants at High-Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 44, 154–167 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1861-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1861-4

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