Early Language Development Within the Autism Spectrum

语言发育迟缓和沟通能力障碍构成了一种诊断特征 自闭症和PDD-NOS/非典型自闭症；沟通挑战也有很好的记录 在患有阿斯伯格综合症的儿童中。这个项目的目标是描述早期语言的特征 被诊断为这些广泛性发育障碍之一的幼儿的发展(谁将是 称为患有自闭症的儿童)。我们的出发点是最近证明的经验重叠。 在自闭症谱系内观察到的语言障碍与在自闭症谱系之外观察到的语言障碍之间的差异(在 语言特异性障碍)，我们的理论动机是是否观察到语言障碍 在ASD中涉及一个独特的现象星座(不同的类别帐户)，或者它们是否不同 仅在数量上不同于在特定语言障碍中观察到的(维度记述)。我们的第一次 具体目标将表征大样本(N=170)ASD儿童在2岁时的早期语言技能； 一个平行的具体目标将通过评估同样的儿童在5岁；6岁时评估语言结果(研究1 和8)。进一步的具体目标将纵向比较两个ASD亚组(“说话迟缓”和“正常” 词汇量，N=74，每个子组37个)，有两个最近收集的样本-其中一个是最近说话的人，具有特定的 语言迟缓和一个典型的发育迟缓的幼儿--他们接受的评估与 为自闭症参与者提出的建议(研究2-7)。这种纵向比较将利用一系列 小组设计实验研究，以及微遗传学方法，以检查机制和模式 词汇和语法技能之间的联系，以及早期词汇和语法技能之间的关系 语言能力和言语重复能力。这个项目的发现将大大推进我们的 了解ASD早期语言发展的本质，将导致更准确的早期 通过澄清患有和不患有ASD的迟发者之间的界限进行诊断，并将提供更多 精炼的语言表型，应指导更合适的治疗方法。

Delays in language development and impairments in communication ability constitute a diagnostic feature of Autistic Disorder and PDD-NOS/Atypical Autism; communication challenges are also well documented among children with Asperger's Disorder. The goal of this project is to characterize the early language development of young children diagnosed with one of these pervasive developmental disorders (who will be referred to as children with an ASD). Our starting point is the empirical overlap recently demonstrated between the language impairments observed within the autism spectrum and those observed outside it (in language specific disorders), and our theoretical motivation is whether the language impairments observed in ASD involve a unique constellation of phenomena (the distinct category account), or whether they differ only quantitatively from those observed in language-specific disorders (the dimensional account). Our first specific aim will characterize the early language skills of a large sample (N=170) of ASD children at age 2;6; a parallel specific aim will evaluate language outcomes by assessing the same children at age 5;6 (Studies 1 and 8). Further specific aims will compare longitudinally two ASD subgroups ("late talker" and "normal vocabulary," N=74, 37 per subgroup) with two recently collected samples - one of late talkers with specific language delay and one of typically developing young children - who received the same assessments as those proposed for the ASD participants (Studies 2-7). This longitudinal comparison will utilize a series of group design experimental studies, as well as microgenetic methods, to examine mechanisms and patterns of novel word learning, the link between lexical and grammatical skills, and the relation between early language abilities and verbal repetition. Findings from this project will significantly advance our understanding of the nature of early language development in ASD, will lead to more accurate early diagnosis by clarifying the boundaries between late talkers with and without ASD, and will provide more refined language phenotypes that should direct better fitting treatment approaches.