Brief Report: Response to Joint Attention and Object Imitation as Predictors of Expressive and Receptive Language Growth Rate in Young Children on the Autism Spectrum.
Kyle M Frost, Anamiguel Pomales-Ramos, Brooke Ingersoll
PMID 35657445WHAT IT FOUND
Children on the autism spectrum who followed adult points better gained expressive language faster during the study.
This did not predict faster receptive language growth, and object imitation no longer predicted expressive growth once response to joint attention was included.
Key findings
01For a 1-month increase in time, children with higher response to joint attention gained 2.03 expressive language raw score points, while children with lower response gained .81 points.
02Children with higher baseline object imitation gained 1.80 expressive language raw score points per month, compared with .94 points for lower object imitation, but object imitation was not significant when response to joint attention was included.
03Children with better response to joint attention had higher receptive language raw scores overall, but response to joint attention did not predict the rate of receptive language growth.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was very heterogeneous, including children from 18 to 93 months old with a wide range of cognitive ability, so the results may not apply to a specific age or developmental level. The study could not directly compare different age groups or test whether age changes the relationships among joint attention, imitation, and language growth. The children were accessing a wide range of community and school-based services during the study, so language growth may reflect other supports rather than the measured skills alone. The paper reports predictors over time, not the effect of a controlled treatment, so it cannot show that improving response to joint attention or object imitation causes language growth. A subset of 26 children received a slightly modified object imitation task with 9 objects rather than 10, and the authors note that imitation tasks differ across studies.
Declared interests
No funding or conflict of interest statement is included in the supplied article text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that improving response to joint attention will improve expressive or receptive language. It predicted expressive growth but not receptive growth, and the study did not test whether a treatment targeting response to joint attention causes language change.