This study investigated the extent to which sensory responsivity in infancy contributes to adaptive behavior development among toddlers at high-familial likelihood for autism. Prospective, longitudinal data were analyzed for 218 children, 58 of whom received an autism diagnosis. Results indicated that sensory profiles at age one year…

Sensory features are included in the diagnostic criteria of autism spectrum disorder, and sensory responsiveness may produce "cascading effects" on later development. However, the relation between early sensory profiles and later skills has yet to be defined. This study aims to characterize sensory subgroups in 116 toddlers at elevated…

Words that describe sensory perception give insight into how language mediates human experience, and the acquisition of these words is one way to examine how we learn to categorize and communicate sensation. We examine the differential predictions of the typological prevalence hypothesis and embodiment hypothesis regarding the acquisition of…

Compare developmental profiles and core ASD symptom manifestation between male and female toddlers with DSM-5 ASD. Retrospective record review of 500 toddlers (79% male) at time of ASD diagnosis. There were no differences in developmental functioning between males and females. When adjusting for multiple comparisons, sex differences were only…

Sensory processing is an essential development in toddlers. A common sensory measurement tool used by Malaysian occupational therapists is Toddler Sensory Profile 2 (TSP 2). However, the Malay version has yet to be translated and validated for TSP 2 among toddlers in Malaysia. The translation and validation are a necessary process due to…

Sensory over-responsivity in the vestibular domain (aka gravitational insecurity) has been frequently identified in the literature. However, little has been written about the effectiveness of interventions, especially in toddlers with these idiopathic challenges (e.g. without a diagnosis of autism). The objective of this pilot study was to test…

Children pay more attention to the beginnings and ends of sentences rather than the middle. In natural speech, ends of sentences are prosodically and segmentally enhanced; they are also privileged by sensory and recall advantages. We contrasted whether acoustic enhancement or sensory and recall-related advantages are necessary and sufficient for…

This study examined the performance of the First Year Inventory (FYI; version 2.0), a community-normed parent-reported screening instrument, in a high-risk (HR) sample of 12-month-olds with older siblings diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The FYI 2.0 was completed by parents of 86 HR infants and 35 low-risk control infants at age…

Purpose: Differences in communication development impact long-term outcomes of children with autism. Previous research has identified factors associated with communication in children with autism, but much of the variance in communication skill remains unexplained. It has been proposed that early differences in sensory responsiveness (i.e.,…

In the present article we aim to explore the link between Merleau-Pontyan phenomenology and what we call sensory pedagogy. The latter connects to recent sensory ethnography as presented by S. Pink ("Sensory ethnography." London: Sage; 2009). We discuss how these thoughts can be put to work in toddler pedagogy. This kind of sensory…

Symbolic play is a powerful vehicle for supporting emotional development and communication. It embraces all developmental capacities. This article describes how symbols are formed and how emotional themes are symbolized whereby children reveal their understanding of the world, their feelings and relationships, and how they see themselves in the…

Alyssa Conklin-Moore discusses normalization in the child under three from several perspectives. She takes an extensive look at the child, including orienting parents to the Montessori environment, the child's entrance into the environment, addressing the sensitive periods, and fostering independence, contribution, and community. She reminds the…

Molly wrote this article thirteen years ago. It is a fitting counterpart to the preface of this publicaton because it predicts the role of nature across the planes of education even before the Erdkinder was tested. The article combines contemporary environmentalists with Montessori's seminal insight into the developmental impact of nature on the…

This report focuses on the emergence of and bidirectional effects between anxiety and sensory over-responsivity (SOR) in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Participants were 149 toddlers with ASD and their mothers, assessed at 2 annual time points. A cross-lag analysis showed that anxiety symptoms increased over time while SOR remained…

Many letters of the alphabet are consistently mapped to specific colors in English-speaking adults, both in the general population and in individuals with grapheme-color synaesthesia who perceive letters in color. Here, across six experiments, we tested the ubiquity of the color/letter associations with typically developing toddlers, literate…