Infant quantitative risk for autism spectrum disorder predicts executive function in early childhood.
Rebecca L Stephens, Linda R Watson, Elizabeth R Crais and 1 others
PMID 30345650WHAT IT FOUND
At 3.5 years, children whose parents reported more sensory-regulatory behaviors at 12 months showed more parent-reported executive-function difficulties.
This remained after accounting for later ASD symptoms. Social-communication risk did not.
Key findings
01After accounting for 42-month ASD symptoms, sensory-regulatory risk at 12 months predicted 42-month executive function scores; the Emergent Metacognition Index did not remain significant after correction.
02When both infant risk domains were included, social-communication and sensory-regulatory risk predicted the Global Executive Composite and Emergent Metacognition Index, while only sensory-regulatory risk predicted the Inhibitory Self-Control Index and Flexibility Index.
03After accounting for 42-month ASD symptoms, social-communication risk associations with inhibitory self-control and flexibility were opposite to expected and not significant after correction.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
All measures were parent reports, so shared reporter bias and parent expectations could affect the associations. The sample was mostly White, highly educated, and high income, so results may not apply to more diverse families. Infants who met dual-domain criteria for intervention invitation were excluded, so this is not a high-risk clinical sample. Only four children had a reported ASD diagnosis, so this does not describe a diagnosed ASD sample. The SRS-2.0 mainly measures social impairment, so controlling for it may overlap with the social-communication risk domain. Several sensory-regulatory subscales had few items, and multiple comparisons were corrected, so some findings should be interpreted cautiously. No laboratory-based executive function measures were used.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study received NIH and U.S. government non-PHS research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as showing that sensory-regulatory behaviors cause later executive-function difficulties or as a tool to diagnose a child. The study reports group associations from parent questionnaires and did not test an intervention.