Early Social Orienting in Siblings of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

描述（由申请人提供）：虽然自闭症儿童的兄弟姐妹被发现有较高的社交和沟通障碍风险，但研究尚未关注这些儿童的早期发展。研究自闭症儿童的兄弟姐妹的主要优势是它提供了一个机会，可以识别和纠正可能对后续发展产生不利影响的早期缺陷。社会交际行为缺陷是自闭症儿童最突出的早期症状，最近有人假设这表明存在一种基本的、自闭症特有的“社会定向”障碍。拟建项目将研究社会定向的四个维度（即发起情感、发起注意、响应情感、响应注意）的早期发展。在正常发育的婴儿中，这些行为类别出现得相当早，并为重要的发展成就的出现奠定了基础，例如建立社会情感互惠和使用参考语言。社会定向行为将在两个兄弟姐妹群体中进行纵向研究：自闭症谱系障碍儿童（sibb - asd）的弟弟妹妹和ca匹配的典型发育儿童（sibb - td）的弟弟妹妹。两组儿童将在12至18个月大的时候进入研究，并将被跟踪两年（即，直到36-42个月大）。社会导向行为将在2年期间的6个时间点进行测量，社会和语言结果将在结束时进行测量。此外，将招募两个年龄匹配的比较样本：ASD儿童和非自闭症发育迟缓（DD）儿童，为社会定向行为提供终点参考。纳入这些样本将使我们能够比较自闭症儿童的兄弟姐妹在3岁时的社会取向：a)正常发育的儿童；b) ASD患儿；c)发育障碍儿童。该项目对自闭症文献做出了独特的贡献，因为它关注自闭症儿童的年幼兄弟姐妹；它系统地考察了社会取向的不同组成部分；纵向设计；以及在3岁时使用ASD和DD的横截面样本，为社交定向技能的延迟和偏差提供基准。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although siblings of children with autism have been found to be at elevated risk for social and communication impairments, research has not yet focused on the very early development of these children. The primary advantage of studying young siblings of children with autism is the opportunity it affords for the identification and remediation of early deficits that could have adverse effects on subsequent development. Deficits in social-communicative behaviors are the most prominent early symptoms in children with autism, and have recently been hypothesized to indicate the presence of a fundamental, autism-specific "social orienting" impairment. The proposed project will study the early development of four dimensions of social orienting (i.e., initiating affect, initiating attention, responding to affect, responding to attention). In typically developing infants, these classes of behavior appear quite early and set the stage for the emergence of important developmental accomplishments such as establishing social-emotional reciprocity and using referential language. Social orienting behaviors will be examined longitudinally in two sibling groups: younger siblings of children with autism spectrum disorders (SIB-ASD) and younger siblings of typically-developing children (SIB-TD) who are CA-matched. Children in both groups will enter the study between 12 and 18 months of age and will be followed for two years (i.e., through ages 36-42 months). Social orienting behaviors will be measured at six time points over the 2-year period, and social and language outcomes will be measured at the end point. Additionally, two age-matched comparison samples will be recruited to provide end-point references for social orienting behavior: children with ASD and children with nonautistic developmental delays (DD). The inclusion of these samples will enable us to compare social orienting at age 3 in siblings of children with ASD with that of: a) children with typical development; b) children with ASD; and c) children with DD. This project represents a unique contribution to the autism literature in its focus on very young siblings of children with autism; its systematic examination of different components of social orienting; its longitudinal design; and its use of ASD and DD cross-sectional samples at age 3 to provide benchmarks for delay and deviance in social orienting skills.