Maternal Vocal Feedback to 9‐Month‐Old Infant Siblings of Children with ASD

Abstract

Infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder display differences in early language and social communication skills beginning as early as the first year of life. While environmental influences on early language development are well documented in other infant populations, they have received relatively little attention inside of the infant sibling context. In this study, we analyzed home video diaries collected prospectively as part of a longitudinal study of infant siblings. Infant vowel and consonant-vowel vocalizations and maternal language-promoting and non-promoting verbal responses were scored for 30 infant siblings and 30 low risk control infants at 9 months of age. Analyses evaluated whether infant siblings or their mothers exhibited differences from low risk dyads in vocalization frequency or distribution, and whether mothers’ responses were associated with other features of the high risk context. Analyses were conducted with respect to both initial risk group and preliminary outcome classification. Overall, we found no differences in infants’ consonant-vowel vocalizations, the frequency of overall maternal utterances, or the distribution of mothers’ response types. Both groups of infants produced more vowel than consonant-vowel vocalizations, and both groups of mothers responded to consonant-vowel vocalizations with more language-promoting than non-promoting responses. These results indicate that as a group, mothers of high risk infants provide equally high quality linguistic input to their infants in the first year of life and suggest that impoverished maternal linguistic input does not contribute to high risk infants’ initial language difficulties. Implications for intervention strategies are also discussed.

Predictors of Parent Responsiveness to 1-Year-Olds At-Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…The baseline regression model included only child communication as a predictor of parent responsiveness variables, due to replicated previous findings indicating associations between these two variables (Abraham et al, 2013; Leezenbaum et al, 2014; Talbott et al, 2015; Tamis-LeMonda et al, 2001; Wu & Gros-Louis, 2015). Subsequent variables were added to this baseline model, resulting in the following regression models: (a) child communication (as measured by either the CSBS-DP-CQ or the CSBS-DP-BS); (b) child communication and nonverbal cognitive level (as measured by the MSEL visual reception T score); (c) child communication and HYPO (as measured by either the SPA or SEQ); and (d) child communication and HYPER (as measured by either the SPA or SEQ).…”

“…Parents tend to respond more frequently to their infants with or without risk for ASD when the infant uses more sophisticated communication (Abraham et al, 2013; Karasik et al, 2014; Leezenbaum et al, 2014; Talbott et al, 2015; Wu & Gros-Louis, 2015). The current study supports these past findings.…”

“…Parents tend to respond more frequently to (a) consonant-vowel utterances at 9 months of age, as opposed to vowel-only utterances, regardless of whether the child has high- or low-risk for ASD based on family history (Talbott, Nelson, & Tager-Flusberg, 2015); and (b) pointing and showing gestures at 13 months of age, as opposed to giving and requesting gestures, when the child is at low-risk for developing ASD based on family history (Leezenbaum et al, 2014), and particularly when the child is moving while gesturing (i.e., walking or crawling) (Karasik, Tamis-Lemonda, & Adolph, 2014). When both gestures and vocalizations are considered in typically developing 12-month-olds, parents are more likely to respond to pointing than vocalizations (Wu & Gros-Louis, 2015).…”

“…Research indicates that parents of children with or at-risk for ASD (i.e., siblings of a child with ASD) demonstrate similar levels of responsiveness (Leezenbaum et al, 2014; Siller & Sigman, 2002; Talbott et al, 2015; Watson, 1998) and types of responses as parents of typically developing children (Talbott et al, 2015). However, parents of children with or at-risk for ASD tend to have fewer opportunities to respond (Leezenbaum et al, 2014).…”

Early language exposure supports later language skills in infants with and without autism

“…Studying these infants allows for the prospective study of ASD. Previous research has found relatively comparable early language environments of infants with and without a family history of ASD [Campbell, Leezenbaum, Mahoney, Day, & Schmidt, ; Northrup & Iverson, ; Swanson et al, ; Talbott, Nelson, & Tager‐Flusberg, ], while some subtle differences in the timing and synchrony of parent–child interactions have been reported [Northrup & Iverson, ; Wan et al, ]. Studies of older children with ASD showed that responsive caregiver language was associated with better joint attention and language skills [Bottema‐Beutel, Yoder, Hochman, & Watson, ; McDuffie & Yoder, ; Siller & Sigman, , ].…”