Early Social, Imitation, Play, and Language Abilities of Young Non-Autistic Siblings of Children with Autism

Abstract

Studies are needed to better understand the broad autism phenotype in young siblings of children with autism. Cognitive, adaptive, social, imitation, play, and language abilities were examined in 42 non-autistic siblings and 20 toddlers with no family history of autism, ages 18-27 months. Siblings, as a group, were below average in expressive language and composite IQ, had lower mean receptive language, adaptive behavior, and social communication skills, and used fewer words, distal gestures, and responsive social smiles than comparison children. Additionally, parents reported social impairments in siblings by 13 months of age. These results suggest that the development of young non-autistic siblings is affected at an early age and, thus, should be closely monitored, with appropriate interventions implemented as needed.

What have birth cohort studies asked about genetic, pre- and perinatal exposures and child and adolescent onset mental health outcomes? A systematic review

“…As Pickles and Angold (2003) state, in order to understand the relationships between psychopathology, its aetiology, outcome and other factors, "we need to adopt a truly empirical approach that is unblinkered by either categorical or dimensional prejudices" (p548). Retrospective studies of early predictors of psychopathology are limited by issues of recall bias while prospective cohorts of subjects at 'high risk' (Besag, 2006;Cassell et al, 2007;Gamliel, Yirmiya, & Sigman, 2007;Iverson & Wozniak, 2007;Landa, Garrett-Mayer, Landa, & Garrett-Mayer, 2006;Loh et al, 2007;Merin, Young, Ozonoff, & Rogers, 2007;Toth, Dawson, Meltzoff, Greenson, & Fein, 2007;Yirmiya et al, 2006;Zwaigenbaum et al, 2005b;Yirmiya et al, 2007;Zwaigenbaum et al, 2005a;Zwaigenbaum et al, 2005a) may reveal early indicators of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism, but are subject to a variety of forms of selection and ascertainment bias. For example, prospective studies of children exposed to smoking in pregnancy and of children with very low birth weights have shown increased rates of ADHD and of ADHD/autism symptoms (Hultman et al, 2007;Indredavik, Brubakk, Romundstad, & Vik, 2007), but to what extent such factors alone can contribute to these difficulties can best be determined in the context of general population birth cohort studies.…”

What can autism teach us about the role of sensorimotor systems in higher cognition? New clues from studies on language, action semantics, and abstract emotional concept processing

“…Landa, Gross, Stuart, and Faherty (2013), for example, found that the widening divergence in fine motor skills between HR-autistic and non-autistic groups only reached significance at 36 months. Some studies do not detect movement deficits at all (Zwaigenbaum et al, 2005: these authors use an insensitive measure which does interestingly reveal motor deficits in another baby sibs study [Brian et al, 2008]), whereas some studies find differences in one motor battery but not another (Toth, Dawson, Meltzoff, Greenson, & Fein, 2007). Studies which investigate parental concerns corroborate the variation in findings: where some report that parents of infants who are later diagnosed as autistic express significantly more concerns about movement problems from 6 to 24 months than do parents of HR-TD infants (Sacrey et al, 2015), others classify motor skills among more general concerns (e.g., eating and sleeping problems) and in comparison with specific social autistic symptoms, find them less discriminatory between groups (Ozonoff et al, 2009).…”

Common Genetic Etiologies and Biological Pathways Shared Between Autism Spectrum Disorders and Intellectual Disabilities

“…They had lower mean receptive language, adaptive behavior, and social communication skills. They used fewer words, distal gestures, and social smiles than children with no familial history of autism (Toth et al, 2007).…”