Longitudinal analysis of communication repair skills across three neurodevelopmental disabilities.

The repair task was a structured picture-description task, not a natural conversation, so everyday repair behaviour may differ. The study did not record the type or intensity of therapy or other support between the two time points, so developmental changes could have been influenced by intervention. Girls with autism only were not included, so the sex and diagnostic patterns found in autism alone cannot be judged from this paper. Children with Down syndrome and autism were not included. Some children had unintelligible speech, especially girls with Down syndrome, so repair was coded from fewer responses. Time 2 sample sizes were smaller than Time 1, so the lack of group differences at Time 2 should be read cautiously. Some children attended only the first time point because of rolling enrollment. Boys with fragile X and autism who completed both visits resisted the task more than those who completed only the first visit, which suggests the longitudinal sample may not be identical to the first-time sample.

The authors reported no conflicts of interest and said they alone were responsible for the paper. The publication types list NIH and non-U.S. government research support, but the article text does not state that a sponsor designed or wrote the study.

Do not read the absence of significant group differences at the second time point as proof that communication repair skills are equivalent across groups or that they are not clinically important. The second-time-point samples were smaller, and the age-based analyses showed group- and sex-specific changes in repair strategies.