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受损构成了自闭症和PDD-NOS/非典型自闭症的诊断特征;在患有自闭症的儿童中，沟通挑战也有很好的记录。该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（将被称为ASD儿童）的早期语言发展。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之间的经验重叠（在语言特异性障碍中），我们的理论动机是在ASD中观察到的语言障碍是否涉及一系列独特的现象（独特类别帐户），或者他们是否只是从语言特异性障碍（维度帐户）中观察到的数量上的差异。我们的第一个具体目标将描述一个大样本（N=170）的ASD儿童在2岁的早期语言技能;6;一个平行的具体目标将通过评估相同的儿童在5岁的语言结果;6（研究1和8）。进一步的具体目标将纵向比较2个ASD亚组（“晚说话者”和“正常词汇”，N=74，每个亚组37）与2个最近收集的样本- 1个具有特定语言延迟的晚说话者和1个典型发育中的幼儿-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组设计实验研究，以及微观发生的方法，以检查机制和模式的新单词学习，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。该项目的研究结果将大大促进我们对ASD早期语言发展性质的理解，通过澄清患有和不患有ASD的晚期说话者之间的界限，将导致更准确的早期诊断，并将提供更精确的语言表型，这些表型应该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.