Abstract
Longitudinal research on language abilities and social functioning in young children suggests that gains in one domain affect gains in the other. However, few studies have examined inter-relations of language and social functioning jointly among young children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Pre-verbal toddlers with ASD are a group of particular clinical relevance, given that greater language abilities at school entry have been associated with positive long-term adjustment in many areas, including adaptive and social functioning. Reduced attention to and engagement in social interactions among autistic toddlers who are not yet speaking may interfere with language development concurrently and over time. The present study examined reciprocal associations between language ability and social functioning over a 2-year period across three time points in a sample of 90 pre-verbal autistic toddlers using cross-lagged panel analyses conducted in MPlus. Cross-lagged panel analyses revealed significant within-timepoint synchronous correlations, within-domain autoregressive paths over time, and as hypothesized, reciprocal significance in all cross-lagged paths. For very young pre-verbal children with ASD, language ability and social functioning appear to exert concurrent and cascading developmental influences on one another. Targeting both language and social functioning simultaneously may enhance intervention efficacy for very young pre-verbal children with ASD.
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Acknowledgments
This research was conducted as part of the Studies to Advance Autism Research and Treatment (STAART) center at Boston University. We thank the STAART Center staff for their dedicated work on this project. We are particularly grateful to the families of the children in this study, whose participation in our project inspires this work and makes it possible. The first author thanks the members of her master’s thesis committee, Drs. Alice S. Carter, Abbey Eisenhower, and Laurel Wainwright, for their feedback and support of this manuscript.
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Funding was provided by National Institute of Mental Health Grant U54 MH 66398 (Helen Tager-Flusberg, Center Principal Investigator, Alice S. Carter, Project Principal Investigator) as well as the National Institutes of Health grant U19 DC 03610 (Helen Tager-Flusberg, Center Principal Investigator, Alice S. Carter, Project Principal Investigator) and the Boston University School of Medicine General Clinical Research Center Grant M01-RR0533.
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Study conceptualization, study design, and data collection were performed by ASC and collaborators. Data analysis was completed by DO and was overseen by ASC. The first draft of the manuscript was written by DO and was subsequently revised for publication by MH. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Devon Oosting and Mya Howard do not declare any potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Alice S. Carter has no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research and authorship of this article. Dr. Carter is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. All authors have no relevant financial interests to disclose.
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Oosting, D.R., Howard, M.S. & Carter, A.S. Reciprocal Associations Between Language Ability and Social Functioning Development in Pre-verbal Autistic Children. J Autism Dev Disord 54, 1643–1655 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-05906-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-05906-x