Bayonet-shaped language development in autism with regression: a retrospective study.
David Gagnon, Abderrahim Zeribi, Élise Douard and 6 others
PMID 33985558WHAT IT FOUND
Children with autism who lose early words take longer to reach fluent speech.
However, if they have normal non-verbal intelligence, almost all become fluent by age 18. The loss itself does not predict poor long-term language outcomes.
Key findings
01Children with early language loss take twice as long to reach fluent speech compared to those without loss, but the loss itself does not affect the final probability of being fluent by age 18.
02Non-verbal intelligence, rather than a history of language loss, is the strongest predictor of whether a child will become a fluent speaker.
03Fluent speakers with a history of language loss had smaller receptive vocabularies than those without, but showed no difference in overall expressive or receptive language levels reported by parents.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot track individual children over time; it compares different children at different ages to estimate development. Data on early language loss and milestones relies on parent recall, which can be biased by telescoping (remembering events as happening later than they did) or by the child's current abilities. The definition of early language loss was strict (loss of 5+ words for 3+ months), so children with milder or more subtle losses were classified as not having experienced loss. The sample consisted of children from families with only one affected child (simplex families), which may not represent all children with autism. The study did not include control groups of typically developing children or children with other conditions like developmental language disorder.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was funded by the RTSA/TACC and the Chaire Marcel & Rolande Gosselin.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a child who has lost early words will permanently have poor language skills. While their progress may slow down significantly during a plateau, their long-term ability to become a fluent speaker depends more on their non-verbal intelligence than on the history of language loss.