The effect of responsiveness to speech-generating device input on spoken language in children with autism spectrum disorder who are minimally verbal†.

Only 31 children were analysed, and the study is correlational: it can show that early responsiveness and later language moved together, not that responding to the device caused the language gains. Every child in the sample had a receptive language age of about two years, so these results may not hold for children with a wider range of understanding, and the authors ask for replication in that wider group. The children were a selected group from a trial. They had all already received two years of behavioural intervention, none had a serious medical condition, deafness, a motor disability, seizures or proficient device use, and all were in a study arm given the device from the start. Children's spoken language was very limited at entry, with an average of 17.23 different words in a naturalistic sample, which limits how much change could be detected. The coding scheme for children's responsiveness to device models was reliable in this sample but has not yet been checked in a second, larger group of school-aged minimally verbal children with autism.

The supplied article text contains no funding statement and no conflict of interest declaration. The paper is indexed as having received NIH extramural research support and other non-U.S. government research support.

Do not read this as proof that adding a speech-generating device caused these children's language gains. Children responded to the device no more often than to ordinary spoken models, the analysis is correlational in 31 children, and the children who responded to the device early were also the ones who already had more joint attention and more words.