Brief Report: The Development of Compliance in Toddlers at-Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Naomi V Ekas, Nicole M McDonald, Megan M Pruitt and 1 others
PMID 28138832WHAT IT FOUND
Toddlers later diagnosed with autism showed less growth in compliance than high-risk toddlers without autism.
They also showed more passive noncompliance, especially later in the toddler years.
Key findings
01Compliance did not differ at 24 months, but high-risk toddlers with ASD outcomes showed less growth in compliance from 24 to 36 months than high-risk toddlers without ASD outcomes.
02High-risk toddlers with ASD outcomes spent more time in passive noncompliance at 24 and 36 months than toddlers without ASD outcomes.
03High-risk toddlers with ASD outcomes showed less active noncompliance at 24 months than comparison groups, and this difference remained after controlling for receptive language.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
This was an observational study, so it cannot show that any treatment changed compliance. Many children missed one or two visits, and missing data were common for language and severity scores. The sample was limited to families with or without a sibling with autism, so it does not represent all toddlers with ASD. Mothers were highly educated on average, which may limit generalizability. Compliance was measured only during a clean-up task, so it may not reflect all requests or prohibitions. The high-risk ASD group had lower receptive language scores, and the study could not fully separate ASD symptoms from language difficulty.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these compliance differences as proof that a therapy works. The study did not test an intervention; it observed children who already had or did not have an ASD outcome.