Early Language Development Within the Autism Spectrum

描述（由申请人提供）：语言发育迟缓和沟通能力障碍是自闭症和PDD-NOS/非典型自闭症的诊断特征；阿斯伯格症儿童的沟通障碍也有很好的记录。这个项目的目标是描述被诊断患有这些广泛性发育障碍之一的幼儿的早期语言发展特征（这些儿童将被称为ASD儿童）。我们的出发点是最近在自闭症谱系内观察到的语言障碍与在自闭症谱系外观察到的语言障碍（在语言特异性障碍中）之间的经验重叠，我们的理论动机是，在自闭症谱系中观察到的语言障碍是否涉及一个独特的现象群（独特类别解释），或者它们是否只是在数量上与在语言特异性障碍中观察到的语言障碍不同（维度解释）。我们的第一个具体目标是描述一个大样本（N=170）的自闭症儿童在2岁、6岁和6岁时的早期语言技能。一个平行的具体目标是通过评估5岁儿童的语言成绩；6（研究1和8）。进一步的具体目标将纵向比较两个ASD亚组（“晚说话者”和“正常词汇”，每个亚组N= 74,37）和最近收集的两个样本——一个是有特定语言延迟的晚说话者，一个是正常发育的幼儿——他们接受了与ASD参与者相同的评估（研究2-7）。这种纵向比较将利用一系列的群体设计实验研究，以及微遗传学方法，来检查新单词学习的机制和模式，词汇和语法技能之间的联系，以及早期语言能力和口头重复之间的关系。这个项目的研究结果将极大地促进我们对ASD早期语言发展本质的理解，将通过澄清有和没有ASD的晚期说话者之间的界限，导致更准确的早期诊断，并将提供更精细的语言表型，从而指导更好的治疗方法。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): 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 1 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 2 ASD subgroups ("late talker" and "normal vocabulary," N=74, 37 per subgroup) with 2 recently collected samples - 1 of late talkers with specific language delay and 1 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.