Background:

Language, including gestural communication, is delayed in infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who are at high risk for the disorder (high-risk; HRA). Factors such as parental communication influence infant language development. In typically developing infant-mother dyads, maternal gestures tend to remain stable over time (Iverson et al. 1999), but this has not been extensively studied in mothers of HRA children. Talbott et al. (2015) found that mothers of HRA 12-month infants not diagnosed and later diagnosed with ASD produced similar rates of total gestures. The responsivity of infants during communication may relate to parental communicative actions (Goodman et al. 2005) or to future ASD diagnosis (Wan et al. 2013). However, it remains unclear whether infants and their mothers respond contingently to each other’s gestures. Here, we specifically examined maternal gestures and their infants’ responses as the initial step toward a better understanding of the nature of maternal gestures and bi-directionality of communicative synchrony.

Objectives:

To investigate whether: (1) mothers of high- and low-risk (LRC) infants change over time in gesture production at 12, 18, and 24 months of infant age; (2) infant responsivity to maternal gestures differs between diagnostic groups at the three age groups.

Methods:

70 mother-child dyads were videotaped in the lab during a 10-minute free-play interaction at 12, 18, and 24 months. The ADOS and best clinical estimate at 18-36 months were used to determine ASD diagnosis (+) or lack thereof (-) and classify infants into outcome groups: HRA+: n= 17; HRA-:n= 25; LRC: n= 29. Gestures were reliably coded and further classified into two categories following Özçalışkan and Goldin-Meadow (2009): gestures produced alone (e.g., pointing to a dog) or with speech (e.g., “look at the dog!” + pointing to a dog). Infant responses to maternal gestures were coded and defined as verbal or nonverbal behaviors that occurred within one utterance of each gesture.

Results:

(1) Mothers of HRA+, HRA-, and LRC infants produced similar rates of gestures, with or without speech, at 12, 18, and 24 months (Kruskal-Wallis; Figure 1). (2) Infants produced significantly more overall responses to maternal gestures over time, and the groups did not differ in their responses (repeated measures ANOVA). Infants responded differently to maternal gestures produced with or without speech (Figure 2). Visual inspection suggests that infants responded proportionally more to gestures alone than to gesture-speech combinations. In addition, while infants remained stable in their responses to gestures produced alone over time, they significantly increased responses to gestures produced with speech between 12-24 months.

Conclusion:

In our sample, HRA+, HRA-, and LRC mothers and their infants demonstrated comparable gestural input and responses, respectively. Infants – regardless of group –

responded differentially to maternal gestures depending on whether the mother produced the gesture with speech or if the mother gestured without speech. These findings can guide further research and inform our understanding of infant and maternal behavior in the development of infants’ communication.

Background:

Pre-linguistic infants use gestures to communicate. Children’s early gestures also predict subsequent language learning (Rowe & Goldin-Meadow, 2009). One potential mechanism, through which gesture may facilitate language learning is that an infant’s gestures elicit responses from communicative partners, which, in turn, help develop the infant’s language skills (Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2001). For example, when the infant points to a cookie, her mother responds by saying, “You want the cookie,” providing the label for the object. The response then helps the infant to learn the word “cookie.” Despite the important roles gestures play in language learning, surprisingly few studies have directly examined the relations between infant gesture production, maternal responsiveness, and language outcomes (Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005). Here, we studied such relations, specifically in infant siblings of children with ASD, who show deficits in gestural communication (Winder et al., 2012).

Objectives:

To investigate whether (1) infant siblings of children with ASD (high-risk; HRA) exhibit differences from low risk infants (low-risk; LRC) in gesture production between 12 and 24 months, (2) mothers of high- and low-risk infants differ in the proportion of infant gestures they respond to, and (3) early gestures, maternal responsiveness, and language outcomes are related.

Methods:

70 mother-child dyads were videotaped in the lab during a 10-minute free-play interaction at 12, 18, and 24 months. The ADOS and best clinical estimate at 18-36 months were used to determine ASD diagnosis (+) or lack thereof (-) and classify infants into outcome groups: HRA+: n= 17; HRA-:n= 25; LRC: n= 29. The MSEL was administered at 36 months, and raw scores from Expressive and Receptive Language subscales were combined to calculate language outcomes. Gestures were reliably coded from videotaped sessions following Özçalışkan and Goldin-Meadow (2009). Maternal contingent responses to infants’ gestures were coded and defined as verbal or nonverbal behaviors that occurred within one utterance of each gesture and involved translation, repetition, or expansion of the gesture.

Results:

(1) Kruskal-Wallis tests revealed significant differences between groups in the total number of gestures produced at 12 and 18 months (Figure 1). Follow-up pairwise comparisons showed that HRA+ and LRC groups produced significantly fewer gestures, compared to HRA- infants at 12 months. At 18 months, HRA+ and HRA- groups produced significantly fewer gestures than the LRC group. (2) Kruskal-Wallis tests indicated no significant group differences in the proportions of maternal responses to infant gestures between 12 and 24 months (Figure 2). (3) Using Pearson correlations, we found maternal responses at 12 months were significantly negatively related to infants’ language scores at 36 months for the HRA+ group, but were positively trending in the HRA- and LRC groups.

Conclusion:

Despite the differences in early gesture production in infant siblings, their mothers provided similar contingent responses to infants’ gestures, as did mothers of low-risk infants. Understanding both infant and parent behavior in high-risk dyads may shed light on the language learning process of this population and have implications for early intervention practices.

Background: A growing body of research suggests that fine motor abilities are associated with skills in a variety of domains in both typical and atypical development. In this study, we investigated developmental trajectories of fine motor skills between 6 and 24 months in relation to expressive language outcomes at 36 months in infants at high and low familial risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Methods: Participants included 71 high-risk infants without ASD diagnoses, 30 high-risk infants later diagnosed with ASD, and 69 low-risk infants without ASD diagnoses. As part of a prospective, longitudinal study, fine motor skills were assessed at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months of age and expressive language outcomes at 36 months using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning. Diagnosis of ASD was determined at the infant’s last visit to the lab (18, 24, or 36 months) using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule.

Results: Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that high-risk infants who later developed ASD showed significantly slower growth in fine motor skills between 6 and 24 months, compared to their typically developing peers. In contrast to group differences in growth from age 6 months, cross-sectional group differences emerged only in the second year of life. Also, fine motor skills at 6 months predicted expressive language outcomes at 3 years of age.

Conclusions: These results highlight the importance of utilizing longitudinal approaches in measuring early fine motor skills to reveal subtle group differences in infancy between ASD high-risk and low-risk infant populations and to predict their subsequent language outcomes.