Swanson, Donovan, Paterson, Wolff, Meera, Watson, Estes, Marrus, Elison, Shen, McNeilly, MacIntyre, Zwaigenbaum, St. John, Botteron, Dager, Piven
The
way that parents communicate with their typically developing infants is
associated with later infant language development. Here we aim to show that
these associations are observed in infants subsequently diagnosed with autism
spectrum disorder (ASD). This study had three groups: high-familial-risk
infants who did not have ASD (n = 46); high-familial-risk infants who had ASD
(n = 14); and low-familial-risk infants who exhibited typical development (n
= 36). All-day home language recordings were collected at 9 and 15 months,
and language skills were assessed at 24 months. Across all infants in the
study, including those with ASD, a richer home language environment (e.g.,
hearing more adult words and experiencing more conversational turns) at 9 and
15 months was associated with better language skills. Higher parental
educational attainment was associated with a richer home language
environment. Mediation analyses showed that the effect of education on child
language skills was explained by the richness of the home language
environment. Exploratory analyses revealed that typically developing infants
experience an increase in caregiver–child conversational turns across
9–15 months, a pattern not seen in children with ASD. The current study shows
that parent behavior during the earliest stages of life can have a
significant impact on later development, highlighting the home language
environment as means to support development in infants with ASD.