Language in boys with fragile X syndrome

Abstract

The current paper reports of language production in 15 Hebrew-speaking boys, aged 9;0–13;0, with fully methylated, non-mosaic fragile X syndrome and no concomitant diagnosis of autism. Contrary to expectations, seven children were non-verbal. Language production in the verbal children was studied in free conversations and in context-bound speech. Despite extra caution in calculating MLU, participants' language level was not predicted by mean utterance length. Context bound speech resulted in grammatically more advanced performance than free conversation, and performance in both contexts differed in important ways from performance of typically developing MLU-matched controls. The relevance of MLU as a predictor of productive grammar in disordered populations is briefly discussed.

Language development and fragile X syndrome: Profiles, syndrome‐specificity, and within‐syndrome differences

“…. [Levy et al, 2006;Brady et al, in press]. Brady and colleagues reported the results of interviewing 55 biological mothers of young boys (n ¼ 44) and girls (n ¼ 11), ranging in age from 18 to 36 months, with full mutation FXS [Brady et al, in press].…”

“…According to the children's mothers, 42 of the 55 children communicated nonverbally or only produced a few words at the time of the interview. Levy et al [2006] recruited 21 potential participants between 9 and 13 years of age for a study of language development in boys with FXS. Of these 21 boys, seven were found to be prelinguistic communicators.…”

“…The mean chronological age of the girls reported to be nonverbal was 18.5 months, however, compared to 26.4 months for boys, suggesting a greater delay in development for boys. However, little is known about the early communication development of girls with FXS because, to date, most studies have limited their focus to boys [e.g., Roberts et al, 2001Roberts et al, , 2002Levy et al, 2006]). There is a need for further research on prelinguistic communication development in both boys and girls with FXS.…”

“…Studies seeking to learn more about phenotypic profiles of language development in children with FXS have often excluded children who meet the diagnostic criteria for autism [e.g., Roberts et al, 2002;Abbeduto et al, 2003;Levy et al, 2006]. In a study of language development that included children with comorbid FXS and autism, Roberts and colleagues found that the presence of autism was associated with an increased degree of language impairment [Roberts et al, 2001].…”

“…In a more recent investigation conducted in Israel, Levy et al [2006] examined the expressive language skills of 15 Hebrew-speaking boys with FXS who were between the ages of 9 and 13 years. None of the boys had a diagnosis of autism as determined by the childhood autism rating scale [Schopler et al, 1980].…”