Within-task variability on standardized language tests predicts autism spectrum disorder: a pilot study of the Response Dispersion Index

Abstract Background Qualitatively atypical language development characterized by non-sequential skill acquisition within a developmental domain, which has been called developmental deviance or difference, is a common characteristic of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We developed the Response Dispersion Index (RDI), a measure of this phenomenon based on intra-subtest scatter of item responses on standardized psychometric assessments, to assess the within-task variability among individuals with language impairment (LI) and/or ASD. Methods Standard clinical assessments of language were administered to 502 individuals from the New Jersey Language and Autism Genetics Study (NJLAGS) cohort. Participants were divided into four diagnostic groups: unaffected, ASD-only, LI-only, and ASD + LI. For each language measure, RDI was defined as the product of the total number of test items and the sum of the weight (based on item difficulty) of test items missed. Group differences in RDI were assessed, and the relationship between RDI and ASD diagnosis among individuals with LI was investigated for each language assessment. Results Although standard scores were unable to distinguish the LI-only and ASD/ASD + LI groups, the ASD/ASD + LI groups had higher RDI scores compared to LI-only group across all measures of expressive, pragmatic, and metalinguistic language. RDI was positively correlated with quantitative ASD traits across all subgroups and was an effective predictor of ASD diagnosis among individuals with LI. Conclusions The RDI is an effective quantitative metric of developmental deviance/difference that correlates with ASD traits, supporting previous associations between ASD and non-sequential skill acquisition. The RDI can be adapted to other clinical measures to investigate the degree of difference that is not captured by standard performance summary scores.

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Developmental Language Disorder and Autism: Commonalities and Differences on Language

Brain Sciences ◽

10.3390/brainsci11050589 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (5) ◽

pp. 589

Author(s):

Natasa Georgiou ◽

George Spanoudis

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Language Impairment ◽

Language Disorder ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Developmental Language Disorder ◽

Typically Developing Children ◽

Autism Group ◽

Developmental Conditions

Language and communication deficits characterize both autism spectrum disorder and developmental language disorder, and the possibility of there being a common profile of these is a matter of tireless debate in the research community. This experimental study addresses the relation of these two developmental conditions in the critical topic of language. Α total of 103 children (79 males, 24 females) participated in the present study. Specifically, the study’s sample consisted of 40 children with autism, 28 children with developmental language disorder, and 35 typically developing children between 6 and 12 years old. All children completed language and cognitive measures. The results showed that there is a subgroup inside the autism group of children who demonstrate language difficulties similar to children with developmental language disorder. Specifically, two different subgroups were derived from the autism group; those with language impairment and those without. Both autism and language-impaired groups scored lower than typically developing children on all language measures indicating a common pathology in language ability. The results of this study shed light on the relation between the two disorders, supporting the assumption of a subgroup with language impairment inside the autism spectrum disorder population. The common picture presented by the two developmental conditions highlights the need for further research in the field.

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Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fifth Edition Profiles of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder Using a Classification and Regression Trees Analysis

Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment ◽

10.1177/07342829211025924 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 073428292110259

Author(s):

Brittany A. Dale ◽

W. Holmes Finch ◽

Kassie A. R. Shellabarger ◽

Andrew Davis

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Language Impairment ◽

Children With Autism ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

Intelligence Scale ◽

Cart Analysis ◽

Children With Asd ◽

Classification And Regression ◽

Pattern Of Performance

The Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children (WISC) are the most widely used instrument in assessing cognitive ability, especially with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous literature on the WISC has demonstrated a divergent pattern of performance on the WISC for children ASD compared to their typically developing peers; however, there is a lack of research concerning the most recent iteration, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fifth Edition (WISC-V). Due to the distinctive changes made to the WISC-V, we sought to identify the pattern of performance of children with ASD on the WISC-V using a classification and regression (CART) analysis. The current study used the standardization sample data of the WISC-V obtained from NCS Pearson, Inc. Sixty-two children diagnosed with ASD, along with their demographically matched controls, comprised the sample. Results revealed the Comprehension and Letter-Number Sequencing subtests were the most important factors in predicting group membership for children with ASD with an accompanying language impairment. Children with ASD without an accompanying language impairment, however, were difficult to distinguish from matched controls through the CART analysis. Results suggest school psychologists and other clinicians should administer all primary and supplemental subtests of the WISC-V as part of a comprehensive assessment of ASD.

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Pragmatic versus structural difficulties in the production of pronominal clitics in French-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder

Autism & Developmental Language Impairments ◽

10.1177/2396941518799643 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

pp. 239694151879964 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Philippe Prévost ◽

Laurice Tuller ◽

Racha Zebib ◽

Marie Anne Barthez ◽

Joëlle Malvy ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Language Impairment ◽

Specific Language Impairment ◽

Children With Autism ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

First Person ◽

Specific Language ◽

Third Person ◽

Structural Language

Background and aims Impaired production of third person accusative pronominal clitics is a signature of language impairment in French-speaking children. It has been found to be a prominent and persistent difficulty in children and adolescents with specific language impairment. Previous studies have reported that many children with autism spectrum disorder also have low performance on these clitics. However, it remains unclear whether these difficulties in children with autism spectrum disorder are due to structural language impairment or to pragmatic deficits. This is because pragmatics skills, notoriously weak in children with autism spectrum disorder, are also needed for appropriate use of pronouns. Use of pronouns without clear referents and difficulty with discourse pronouns (first and second person), which require taking into account the point of view of one’s interlocutor (perspective shifting), have frequently been reported for autism spectrum disorder. Methods We elicited production of nominative, reflexive and accusative third and first person pronominal clitics in 19 verbal children with autism spectrum disorder (aged 6–12, high and low functioning, with structural language impairment, or with normal language) and 19 age-matched children with specific language impairment. If pragmatics is behind difficulties on these elements, performance on first-person clitics would be expected to be worse than performance on third person clitics, since it requires perspective shifting. Furthermore, worse performance for first person clitics was expected in the children with autism spectrum disorder compared to the children with specific language impairment, since weak pragmatics is an integral part of impairment in the former, but not in the latter. More generally, different error patterns would be expected in the two groups, if the source of difficulty with clitics is different (a pragmatic deficit vs. a structural language deficit). Results Similar patterns of relative difficulties were found in the autism spectrum disorder language impairment and specific language impairment groups, with third person accusative clitics being produced at lower rates than first-person pronouns and error patterns being essentially identical. First-person pronouns did not pose particular difficulties in the children with autism spectrum disorder (language impairment or normal language) with respect to third-person pronouns or to the children with specific language impairment. Performance was not related to nonverbal intelligence in the autism spectrum disorder group. Conclusions The elicitation task used in this study included explicit instruction, and focus on perspective shifting (both visual and verbal), allowing for potential pragmatic effects to be controlled. Moreover, the task elicited a variety of types of clitics in morphosyntactic contexts of varying complexity, providing ample opportunities for employment of perspective shifting, which may have also curtailed perseveration of third person over first person. These properties of the task allowed for the grammatical nature of children’s difficulties with third-person accusative clitics to emerge unambiguously. Implications Assessment of structural language abilities in children with autism spectrum disorder requires careful consideration of task demands. The influence of pragmatic abilities on structural language performance can be circumvented by making the pragmatic demands of the task explicit and salient. Filtering out this potential influence on structural language performance is fundamental to understanding language profiles in children with autism spectrum disorder and thus which children could benefit from which kinds of language intervention.

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Social (pragmatic) communication disorders and autism spectrum disorder

Archives of Disease in Childhood ◽

10.1136/archdischild-2014-306944 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 101 (8) ◽

pp. 745-751 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

Gillian Baird ◽

Courtenay Frazier Norbury

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Language Impairment ◽

Communication Disorders ◽

International Classification Of Diseases ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

Pragmatic Language ◽

Clinical Disorder ◽

Dsm 5 ◽

Pragmatic Communication

Changes have been made to the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the recent revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), and similar changes are likely in the WHO International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) due in 2017. In light of these changes, a new clinical disorder, social (pragmatic) communication disorder (SPCD), was added to the neurodevelopmental disorders section of DSM-5. This article describes the key features of ASD, SPCD and the draft ICD-11 approach to pragmatic language impairment, highlighting points of overlap between the disorders and criteria for differential diagnosis.

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Correction to: Self-Directed Video Prompting and Least-to-Most Prompting: Examining Ways of Increasing Vocational Skill Acquisition Among Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability

Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders ◽

10.1007/s41252-019-00138-6 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 102-102

Author(s):

Gulnoza Yakubova ◽

Louis Leibowitz ◽

Briella L. Baer ◽

Nada Halawani ◽

Lauren Lestremau

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Intellectual Disability ◽

Skill Acquisition ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

Video Prompting ◽

Students With Autism

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Evaluation of mismatch negativity as a marker for language impairment in autism spectrum disorder

Journal of Communication Disorders ◽

10.1016/j.jcomdis.2020.105997 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 87 ◽

pp. 105997

Author(s):

Heather L. Green ◽

Lauren C. Shuffrey ◽

Lisa Levinson ◽

Guannan Shen ◽

Trey Avery ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Language Impairment ◽

Mismatch Negativity ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder

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Grammatical Language Impairment in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Exploring Language Phenotypes Beyond Standardized Testing

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00532 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Kacie Wittke ◽

Ann M. Mastergeorge ◽

Sally Ozonoff ◽

Sally J. Rogers ◽

Letitia R. Naigles

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Standardized Testing ◽

Language Impairment ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder

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A pilot investigation of an iOS-based app for toilet training children with autism spectrum disorder

Autism ◽

10.1177/1362361317741741 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 359-370 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Daniel W Mruzek ◽

Stephen McAleavey ◽

Whitney A Loring ◽

Eric Butter ◽

Tristram Smith ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Skill Acquisition ◽

Behavioral Treatment ◽

Retention Rate ◽

Controlled Trial ◽

Children With Autism ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

Toilet Training ◽

Significant Group

We developed an iOS-based app with a transmitter/disposable sensor and corresponding manualized intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder. The app signaled the onset of urination, time-stamped accidents for analysis, reminded parents to reinforce intervals of continence, provided a visual outlet for parents to communicate reinforcement, and afforded opportunity for timely feedback from clinicians. We compared this intervention with an intervention that uses standard behavioral treatment in a pilot randomized controlled trial of 33 children with autism spectrum disorder aged 3–6 years with urinary incontinence. Parents in both groups received initial training and four booster consultations over 3 months. Results support the feasibility of parent-mediated toilet training studies (e.g., 84% retention rate, 92% fidelity of parent-implemented intervention). Parents used the app and related technology with few difficulties or malfunctions. There were no statistically significant group differences for rate of urine accidents, toilet usage, or satisfaction at close of intervention or 3-month follow-up; however, the alarm group trended toward greater rate of skill acquisition with significantly less day-to-day intervention. Further development of alarm and related technology and future comparative studies with a greater number of participants are warranted.

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