Brief report: bidirectional association of core autism features and cognitive abilities in early childhood.
Kelsie McGowan, Daniel Berends, Kristelle Hudry and 3 others
PMID 35917020WHAT IT FOUND
Higher cognitive ability at age 2 predicted lower autism features one year later more strongly than autism features predicted later cognitive ability.
This was an observational study, so it shows a link, not that improving cognition reduces autism symptoms.
Key findings
01Earlier developmental/cognitive ability was a stronger predictor of later core autism features than the reverse, with beta weights of 0.28 and 0.16 respectively.
02At subdomain level, higher non-verbal cognitive ability predicted lower social affect and restricted/repetitive behaviour scores later, while higher social affect predicted lower verbal and non-verbal ability scores.
03The study design was observational, which precludes causal inference about whether one domain influences the other.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
This was an observational study, so it cannot prove that improving cognitive ability causes autism features to reduce, or vice versa. A significant number of children (65 of 222) did not have follow-up autism assessment scores, reducing the analysis sample to 155. All participants received early intervention, so the results may not apply to children who do not receive this service. The study only looked at two timepoints about a year apart, which limits the ability to see how these traits influence each other over longer developmental periods.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret these associations as evidence that cognitive therapy will reduce autism symptoms. The study was observational and could not test whether changing one domain causes a change in the other.