Developmental trajectories of sensory patterns from infancy to school age in a community sample and associations with autistic traits

Abstract

This prospective study examined the latent growth trajectories of sensory patterns among a North Carolina birth cohort (N = 1517; 49% boys, 87% White) across infancy (6–19 months), preschool (3–4 years), and school years (6–7 years). Change rates of sensory hyper‐ and hyporesponsiveness better differentiated children with an autism diagnosis or elevated autistic traits from those with other developmental conditions, including non‐autistic children with sensory differences. More sensory hyper‐ and hyporesponsiveness at infancy followed by steeper increases differentially predicted more autistic traits at school age. Further, children of parents with higher education tended to show stable or improving trajectories. These findings highlight the importance of tracking sensory patterns from infancy for facilitating early identification of associated challenges and tailored support for families.

Early developmental profiles of sensory features and links to school-age adaptive and maladaptive outcomes: A birth cohort investigation

“…Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether such heterogeneous developmental patterns are also present in the sensory domain from very early in life. A recent prospective study demonstrated that autistic children and their nonautistic peers followed distinct sensory developmental pathways from infancy to school age, despite that the developmental variability could not be completely explained by clinical outcome status (i.e., autistic vs. non-autistic) and a priori demographic factors (Chen et al, 2022). To better parse sensory heterogeneity, further investigation is needed to explore the existence of unobserved patterns of sensory development (i.e., sensory trajectory subtypes), which not only differ by intensity or degree but also differ by "kind" (i.e., qualitative differences across sensory domains) (Bauer & Reyes, 2010), to better inform screening and treatment efforts.…”

“…Trait scores of sensory features were constructed upon the items extracted from the FYIv3.1 and SEQv2.1, following a series of procedures for longitudinal invariance testing and adjustment for differential item functioning (Chen et al, 2022; also see Appendix II). The higher trait scores indicated more sensory features.…”

“…Comparative fit index (CFI)/Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) ≥ .95 and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) < .08 were used to determine the goodness of model fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999). After confirming that the growth form was consistent across the three sensory constructs given the satisfactory model fits, a multivariate (or parallel process) latent growth model was built to better address the co-occurrence and codevelopmental process of the three sensory features (Chen et al, 2022).…”

“…Further, previous behavioral and neurophysiological evidence suggests that altered sensory processing during infancy may pose cascading impact on later-developed social communication deficits in autistic children (Baranek et al, 2018;Damiano-Goodwin et al, 2018), thus highlighting the significance of sensory features in early detection and intervention. Despite the documented relevance of sensory features for autism, their manifestations are variable across life stages within and beyond the autism spectrum (Ben-Sasson et al, 2019;Chen et al, 2022;Uljarević et al, 2017). Thus, our better understanding of such developmental variability and its impact across broader neurodevelopmental spectra would contribute to a better use of sensory features for early detection and timely intervention delivery in both autistic and general populations.…”

The Sensory Observation Autism Rating Scale (SOAR): Developed using the PROMIS® framework

“…Early sensory differences are widely reported to be associated with a cascade of developmental difference (Baranek et al, 2013(Baranek et al, , 2018Chen et al, 2022;Robertson & Baron-Cohen, 2017;Thye et al, 2018;Uljarevic et al, 2017) such as increasing social difficulty (Baranek et al, 2018;Damiano-Goodwin et al, 2018;Grzadzinski et al, 2020;Nowell et al, 2020). In a recent prospective study of 1517 children, it was found that increased hypo-, and hyper-responsivity at 6-19 months-of-age, respectively, predicted elevated social difficulties and restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) at school age (Chen et al, 2022).…”