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Early predictors of toddlers’ use of decontextualized language and its associations with symptoms of autism : An analysis of phenotypical and genetic associations between early pragmatic and core language ability

Rudling, Maja LU orcid ; Portugal, Ana Maria ; Bölte, Sven and Falck-Ytter, Terje (2022) International Society for Autism Research Annual Meeting p.170-170
Abstract
Background: Pragmatics is the functional use of language in ever-changing social contexts. One early pragmatic ability is decontextualized language;
to talk about events and things beyond here and now. Pragmatic difficulties are practically universal in ASD, but we don’t know about impairments
in early pragmatic development. Further, the roles of early socio-communication and linguistic abilities in the development of decontextualized
language is of both theoretical and practical value and has not previously been studied in young toddlers.

Objectives: Here, we study longitudinal associations between structural language and non-verbal socio-communicative abilities at 14 months age... (More)
Background: Pragmatics is the functional use of language in ever-changing social contexts. One early pragmatic ability is decontextualized language;
to talk about events and things beyond here and now. Pragmatic difficulties are practically universal in ASD, but we don’t know about impairments
in early pragmatic development. Further, the roles of early socio-communication and linguistic abilities in the development of decontextualized
language is of both theoretical and practical value and has not previously been studied in young toddlers.

Objectives: Here, we study longitudinal associations between structural language and non-verbal socio-communicative abilities at 14 months age and
decontextualized language use at 24 months age. We study both children with high and low likelihood of ASD, to discern potential differences in the
predictors and use of decontextualized language between these groups.

Methods: Toddlers from two samples were included; Babytwins Study Sweden (BATSS; a longitudinal twin study) and Early Autism and ADHD
Sweden (EASE; a prospective sibling study). The BATSS sample and the children with low familial likelihood of ASD from the EASE study
constituted the combined typical likelihood group (N = 206, 49.5% boys). Children in the elevated likelihood group (N = 97, 53.6% boys) had
increased familial likelihood of ASD due to first-degree relatives with the diagnosis. The main measures comes from the Swedish version of the
Macarthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (SE-CDI): Structural language and socio-communication from the CDI Words & Gestures
at 14 months of age, and decontextualized language from the CDI Words & Sentences at 24 months of age.

Results: For the combined typical likelihood group, there was an interaction between structural language and socio-communication in predicting later
decontextualized language use, controlling for age and sex. Specifically, the positive association between socio-communication and decontextualized
language was significant only at low levels of structural language, whereas structural language was an independently significant predictor. Notably,
this pattern was specific to decontextualized language, as for grammatical ability at 24 months, only structural language was a significant predictor.
For the elevated likelihood group, structural language independently predicted decontextualized language use, but did not interact with socio-
communication. However, the interaction between structural language and socio-communication was not moderated by group in the overall sample.
For the elevated likelihood group, decontextualized language scores correlated with ADOS-2, and they scored significantly lower on
decontextualized language use compared to children with typical likelihood.

Conclusions: Structural language seems to be a more important factor in predicting decontextualized language use than social communication in both
children with and without elevated likelihood of ASD. Further, while decontextualized language is closely related to structural language, these two
abilities are clearly dissociable even this early in development. Lastly, toddlers with elevated likelihood of ASD already show decreased pragmatic
ability compared to typically developing infants, but we found no strong evidence for differences in the factors predicting this ability across the two
groups. These results may have implication for early intervention targeting pragmatic abilities in infants at elevated likelihood of ASD. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; and
publishing date
type
Contribution to conference
publication status
published
subject
pages
1 pages
conference name
International Society for Autism Research Annual Meeting
conference location
Austin, United States
conference dates
2022-05-12 - 2022-05-14
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
5d488eea-2616-44f3-97be-e37cb8ce8f52
alternative location
https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.autism-insar.org/resource/resmgr/files/insar_2022/2022_Abstract_Book.pdf
date added to LUP
2024-01-22 14:57:15
date last changed
2024-01-22 16:47:35
@misc{5d488eea-2616-44f3-97be-e37cb8ce8f52,
  abstract     = {{Background: Pragmatics is the functional use of language in ever-changing social contexts. One early pragmatic ability is decontextualized language;<br/>to talk about events and things beyond here and now. Pragmatic difficulties are practically universal in ASD, but we don’t know about impairments<br/>in early pragmatic development. Further, the roles of early socio-communication and linguistic abilities in the development of decontextualized<br/><div>language is of both theoretical and practical value and has not previously been studied in young toddlers.</div><div><br/></div>Objectives: Here, we study longitudinal associations between structural language and non-verbal socio-communicative abilities at 14 months age and<br/>decontextualized language use at 24 months age. We study both children with high and low likelihood of ASD, to discern potential differences in the<br/>predictors and use of decontextualized language between these groups.<br/><div><br/></div><div>Methods: Toddlers from two samples were included; Babytwins Study Sweden (BATSS; a longitudinal twin study) and Early Autism and ADHD</div>Sweden (EASE; a prospective sibling study). The BATSS sample and the children with low familial likelihood of ASD from the EASE study<br/>constituted the combined typical likelihood group (N = 206, 49.5% boys). Children in the elevated likelihood group (N = 97, 53.6% boys) had<br/>increased familial likelihood of ASD due to first-degree relatives with the diagnosis. The main measures comes from the Swedish version of the<br/>Macarthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (SE-CDI): Structural language and socio-communication from the CDI Words &amp; Gestures<br/>at 14 months of age, and decontextualized language from the CDI Words &amp; Sentences at 24 months of age.<br/><div><br/></div><div>Results: For the combined typical likelihood group, there was an interaction between structural language and socio-communication in predicting later</div>decontextualized language use, controlling for age and sex. Specifically, the positive association between socio-communication and decontextualized<br/>language was significant only at low levels of structural language, whereas structural language was an independently significant predictor. Notably,<br/>this pattern was specific to decontextualized language, as for grammatical ability at 24 months, only structural language was a significant predictor.<br/>For the elevated likelihood group, structural language independently predicted decontextualized language use, but did not interact with socio-<br/>communication. However, the interaction between structural language and socio-communication was not moderated by group in the overall sample.<br/>For the elevated likelihood group, decontextualized language scores correlated with ADOS-2, and they scored significantly lower on<br/>decontextualized language use compared to children with typical likelihood.<br/><div><br/></div><div>Conclusions: Structural language seems to be a more important factor in predicting decontextualized language use than social communication in both</div>children with and without elevated likelihood of ASD. Further, while decontextualized language is closely related to structural language, these two<br/>abilities are clearly dissociable even this early in development. Lastly, toddlers with elevated likelihood of ASD already show decreased pragmatic<br/>ability compared to typically developing infants, but we found no strong evidence for differences in the factors predicting this ability across the two<br/>groups. These results may have implication for early intervention targeting pragmatic abilities in infants at elevated likelihood of ASD.}},
  author       = {{Rudling, Maja and Portugal, Ana Maria and Bölte, Sven and Falck-Ytter, Terje}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{170--170}},
  title        = {{Early predictors of toddlers’ use of decontextualized language and its associations with symptoms of autism : An analysis of phenotypical and genetic associations between early pragmatic and core language ability}},
  url          = {{https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.autism-insar.org/resource/resmgr/files/insar_2022/2022_Abstract_Book.pdf}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}