Language Performance in Preschool-Aged Boys with Nonsyndromic Autism Spectrum Disorder or Fragile X Syndrome.
Angela John Thurman, Cesar Hoyos Alvarez
PMID 30783899WHAT IT FOUND
Boys with fragile X syndrome showed stronger language than boys with nonsyndromic autism on some measures after age, nonverbal IQ and autism severity were accounted for.
Boys with autism more often had language below their nonverbal ability.
Key findings
01On the receptive vocabulary test, boys with fragile X syndrome scored about 12 standard score points higher than boys with nonsyndromic autism after age, nonverbal IQ and autism severity were held constant.
02During a 20-minute play session with a caregiver, boys with fragile X syndrome had weighted spoken language scores about 100 points higher than boys with nonsyndromic autism after age, nonverbal IQ and autism severity were held constant.
03A larger proportion of boys with nonsyndromic autism than boys with fragile X syndrome had a verbal score significantly below their nonverbal reasoning score, 45% versus 24%.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study included only 16 boys with fragile X syndrome and 25 boys with nonsyndromic autism, so it cannot show how well the pattern holds in larger groups. It included only boys, because fragile X syndrome affects girls differently, so the results may not apply to girls. It compared children at one time point during a period of rapid language growth, so it cannot show how language development unfolds over time. Children with parent-reported or documented IQ above 110 were excluded, so the nonsyndromic autism sample did not represent the full range of cognitive ability. The sample was small enough that only large differences were likely to be detected, and several expected differences were nonsignificant trends.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these results as proof that fragile X syndrome causes better language outcomes or that autism intervention should be changed only by diagnosis. The study was small, looked at one time point and included only boys, and several language differences were nonsignificant trends after controls.