We examined the efficacy of an early autism intervention for use in early childhood intervention (ECI) and mutual gaze as a contributor to social development. Seventy-eight families were randomly assigned to one of three 12-week interventions: Pathways (with a mutual gaze component), communication, or services-as-usual (SAU). The Pathways/SAU…

The objective of this study was to identify subgroups of toddlers with DSM-5 ASD based on core ASD symptoms using a person-based analytical framework. This is a retrospective study of 500 toddlers (mean age 26 months, 79% male) with DSM-5 ASD. Data were analyzed using latent class analyses in which profiles were formed based on ASD symptomatology.…

Looking to the mouth of a talker early in life predicts expressive communication. We hypothesized that looking at a talker's mouth may signal that infants are ready for increased supported joint engagement and that it subsequently facilitates prelinguistic vocal development and translates to broader gains in expressive communication. We tested…

Although there has been growing interest in utilizing robots for intervention in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there have been very few controlled trials to assess the actual impacts of such systems on social communication vulnerabilities. This study reports a randomized controlled trial to investigate a robot-mediated response to joint…

The relationship between turn taking (i.e., back-and-forth preverbal communicative exchanges) and joint attention has not been studied in interactions between children with autism and caregivers. In joint attention, a form of preverbal social communication, young children socially share attention with a partner about objects, a competency that is…

Nonverbal turn taking, defined as back-and-forth exchanges, may be used to convey instrumental or social intent. It has been theorized that social turn taking is foundational to joint attention and, as such, it has been incorporated as a component of early interventions for children with autism, who often have challenges in joint attention…

Children with autism spectrum disorder often have significant language delays. But do they learn language differently than neurotypical toddlers? We compared the lexical skills of 64 preverbal and minimally verbal children with autism spectrum disorder to 461 vocabulary-size-matched typically developing toddlers. We also examined social features…

Center-based classroom community interventions create opportunities for young children with autism to connect with peers. Yet, there has been little examination of the peer interactions of toddlers with autism who experience core challenges in social communication and play skills that may create barriers to successful peer interactions. Classrooms…

This study examined an insufficiently studied predictor of functional language, social motivation, in a group of 87 young children with autism spectrum disorder. Participants (age 14-31 months at the start of the study) were assessed at four times over 24 months. We tested total and indirect associations between early social motivation and later…

The relation between caregiver follow-in utterances with verbs presented in different states of dyadic engagement and later child expressive verb vocabulary in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was examined in 29 toddlers with ASD and their caregivers. Caregiver verb input in follow-in utterances presented during higher order supported…

One of the earliest indicators of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is delay in language and social communication. Despite consensus on the benefits of earlier diagnosis and intervention, our understanding of the language growth of children with ASD during the first years of life remains limited. Therefore, this study compared communication growth…

Characterization of language in naturalistic settings in autism spectrum disorder has been lacking, particularly at young ages, but such information is important for parents, teachers, and clinicians to better support language development in real-world settings. Factors contributing to this lack of clarity include conflicting definitions of…

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.,…

The present study focused on parents' social cue use in relation to young children's attention. Participants were ten parent-child dyads; all children were 36 to 60 months old and were either typically developing (TD) or were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children wore a head-mounted camera that recorded the proximate child view…