Purpose: A recent approach to identifying early markers of risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been to study infants who have an older sibling with ASD. These infants are at heightened risk (HR) for ASD and for other developmental difficulties, and even those who do not receive an eventual ASD diagnosis manifest a high degree of…

In this study we examined early motor, vocal, and communicative development in a group of younger siblings of children diagnosed with autism (Infant Siblings). Infant Siblings and no-risk comparison later-born infants were videotaped at home with a primary caregiver each month from 5 to 14 months, with follow-up at 18 months. As a group, Infant…

The syndrome of childhood autism is typified by major abnormalities in language development, yet there are few systematic descriptions of autistic children's linguistic systems. This paper represents the beginning of a comprehensive investigation of the language of verbal autistic children and concentrates on comparing the syntax used by ten…

Work with verbal autistic children has demonstrated phonological, syntactic, and semantic production defects which are not understandable solely in terms of a developmental lag, but also suggest aspects of atypical linguistic development. This investigation is a preliminary attempt to test not only the production, but also the perception, of…

This study investigated the effectiveness of a natural environment language training procedure that combined the mand-model procedure and the time delay procedure for the acquisition of noun signs and for the spontaneous use of the signs acquired. One autistic boy, aged 5 years, 4 months with no verbal imitation skills and few movement imitation…