Modelling gesture use and early language development in autism spectrum disorder.
Stacy S Manwaring, Danielle L Mead, Lauren Swineford and 1 others
PMID 28120370WHAT IT FOUND
In 197 children, gestures and fine motor scores formed one gesture measure strongly linked to current language.
In 36 children with autism followed up, early gestures were linked to later caregiver-reported receptive language, but not to later observed receptive language or expressive language.
Key findings
01The combined gesture score was strongly linked to current expressive language and current receptive language across the whole sample.
02In the autism follow-up subsample, early gesture scores predicted later Vineland receptive language, but not later Mullen receptive language or expressive language.
03Significantly fewer children with autism were reported to use 6 of the 10 measured gestures than children with developmental delay or typical development.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was descriptive and correlational, so it cannot show that gestures cause language or that gesture training improves language. Models that added nonverbal cognition or autism severity did not converge, so those possible influences could not be separated from gesture and language. The 52 typically developing children alone could not be modelled, likely because scores had little variability and the sample was small. Only 80 children with autism and 29 non-autism children completed the vocabulary measure, and it was removed from the language models. Follow-up data were available only for 36 children with autism, and the follow-up interval was 8 to 16 months. Gesture observation came from clinic-based ADOS tasks, which may not reflect natural play interactions. Groups were not identical: the typical development group was younger, and background characteristics differed across groups. Most non-autism children had ADOS gesture scores of 0 or 1, so the observed gesture measure had little range in that group.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was conducted within a National Institute of Health intramural branch.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that increasing gestures will improve language. The study observed associations, and later prediction was limited to caregiver-reported receptive language in a follow-up subgroup of 36 children.