Describing (pre)linguistic oral productions in 3- to 5-year-old autistic children: A cluster analysis / Pauline MAES in Autism, 27-4 (May 2023)  

Public ISBD [article]  inAutism > 27-4 (May 2023) . - p.967-982 Titre : Describing (pre)linguistic oral productions in 3- to 5-year-old autistic children: A cluster analysis Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Pauline MAES, Auteur ; Marielle WEYLAND, Auteur ; Mikhail KISSINE, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.967-982 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : autism spectrum disorder,cluster analysis,expressive language,minimally speaking Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : In many autistic children, speech onset is delayed and expressive language emerges after 3 years of age. We qualitatively and quantitatively describe oral productions of autistic preschoolers, including many non- or minimally speaking, recorded during interactions with a caregiver and with an experimenter. Data clustering on manually coded oral production samples indicates five validated linguistic profiles of oral production in this diverse and inclusive sample (n=59) of 3- to 5-year-old autistic children with highly variable expressive language abilities. These profiles are then compared on a series of demographic (age, socioeconomic status) and psychometric (autism severity, nonverbal and verbal IQ) measures, as well as on additional measures of language (expressive vocabulary, phonetic inventories). Two clusters are composed of speaking autistic children, while the three others comprise non- or minimally speaking children with qualitatively different patterns of vocal productions. The five-profile division suggests that traditional binary division of speaking vs nonspeaking children does not do justice to the complexity of early expressive language in autism.Lay abstractFor most autistic children, spoken language emergence and development happen after the age of 3. Once they start developing and using spoken language, some eventually manage to reach typical levels of language abilities, while others remain minimally speaking into adulthood. It is therefore difficult to consider young autistic preschoolers as a homogeneous group in terms of spoken language levels. In our study, we breakdown a representative and inclusive group of children on the spectrum aged from 3 to 5 into five subgroups that correspond to different linguistic profiles. To do so, we qualitatively described children?s (pre)verbal productions elicited during interactions with a parent and with an experimenter. We then used a type of statistical analysis called cluster analysis to group together the children that had a similar expressive (pre)linguistic behavior. Using this analysis, we were able to delineate five linguistic profiles with qualitatively different patterns of vocal production. Two of these profiles are composed of speaking children; the three others are composed of non- or minimally speaking children. Our findings show that traditional binary division of speaking versus nonspeaking autistic children is not precise enough to describe the heterogeneity of early spoken language in young autistic children. They also support the use of qualitative descriptions of vocal productions and speech to accurately document children?s level of language, which could, in turn, help design very finely tailored language intervention specific to each child. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613221122663 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=499 [article] Describing (pre)linguistic oral productions in 3- to 5-year-old autistic children: A cluster analysis [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Pauline MAES, Auteur ; Marielle WEYLAND, Auteur ; Mikhail KISSINE, Auteur . - p.967-982. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Autism > 27-4 (May 2023) . - p.967-982 Mots-clés : autism spectrum disorder,cluster analysis,expressive language,minimally speaking Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : In many autistic children, speech onset is delayed and expressive language emerges after 3 years of age. We qualitatively and quantitatively describe oral productions of autistic preschoolers, including many non- or minimally speaking, recorded during interactions with a caregiver and with an experimenter. Data clustering on manually coded oral production samples indicates five validated linguistic profiles of oral production in this diverse and inclusive sample (n=59) of 3- to 5-year-old autistic children with highly variable expressive language abilities. These profiles are then compared on a series of demographic (age, socioeconomic status) and psychometric (autism severity, nonverbal and verbal IQ) measures, as well as on additional measures of language (expressive vocabulary, phonetic inventories). Two clusters are composed of speaking autistic children, while the three others comprise non- or minimally speaking children with qualitatively different patterns of vocal productions. The five-profile division suggests that traditional binary division of speaking vs nonspeaking children does not do justice to the complexity of early expressive language in autism.Lay abstractFor most autistic children, spoken language emergence and development happen after the age of 3. Once they start developing and using spoken language, some eventually manage to reach typical levels of language abilities, while others remain minimally speaking into adulthood. It is therefore difficult to consider young autistic preschoolers as a homogeneous group in terms of spoken language levels. In our study, we breakdown a representative and inclusive group of children on the spectrum aged from 3 to 5 into five subgroups that correspond to different linguistic profiles. To do so, we qualitatively described children?s (pre)verbal productions elicited during interactions with a parent and with an experimenter. We then used a type of statistical analysis called cluster analysis to group together the children that had a similar expressive (pre)linguistic behavior. Using this analysis, we were able to delineate five linguistic profiles with qualitatively different patterns of vocal production. Two of these profiles are composed of speaking children; the three others are composed of non- or minimally speaking children. Our findings show that traditional binary division of speaking versus nonspeaking autistic children is not precise enough to describe the heterogeneity of early spoken language in young autistic children. They also support the use of qualitative descriptions of vocal productions and speech to accurately document children?s level of language, which could, in turn, help design very finely tailored language intervention specific to each child. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613221122663 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=499

Frequency and characteristics of echoes and self-repetitions in minimally verbal and verbally fluent autistic individuals / Pauline MAES in Autism & Developmental Language Impairments, 9 (January-December 2024)  

Public ISBD [article]  inAutism & Developmental Language Impairments > 9 (January-December 2024) Titre : Frequency and characteristics of echoes and self-repetitions in minimally verbal and verbally fluent autistic individuals Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Pauline MAES, Auteur ; Chelsea LA VALLE, Auteur ; Helen TAGER-FLUSBERG, Auteur Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Echolalia  self-repetition  nongenerative speech  minimally verbal  autism Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Background and aims Nongenerative speech is the rote repetition of words or phrases heard from others or oneself. The most common manifestations of nongenerative speech are immediate and delayed echolalia, which are a well-attested clinical feature and a salient aspect of atypical language use in autism. However, there are no current estimates of the frequency of nongenerative speech, and the individual characteristics associated with nongenerative speech use in individuals across the autistic spectrum are poorly understood. In this study, we aim to measure and characterize spontaneous and nongenerative speech use in minimally verbal and verbally fluent autistic children and adolescents. Methods Participants were 50 minimally verbal and 50 verbally fluent autistic individuals aged 6 to 21 years. Spontaneous and nongenerative speech samples were derived from SALT transcripts of ADOS-2 assessments. Participants' intelligible speech utterances were categorized as spontaneous or nongenerative. Spontaneous versus nongenerative utterances were compared between language subgroups on frequency of use and linguistic structure. Associations between nongenerative speech use and a series of individual characteristics (ADOS-2 subscale scores, nonverbal IQ, receptive vocabulary, and chronological age) were investigated over the whole sample and for each language subgroup independently. Results Almost all participants produced some nongenerative speech. Minimally verbal individuals produced significantly more nongenerative than spontaneous utterances, and more nongenerative utterances compared to verbally fluent individuals. Verbally fluent individuals produced limited rates of nongenerative utterances, in comparison to their much higher rates of spontaneous utterances. Across the sample, nongenerative utterance rates were associated with nonverbal IQ and receptive vocabulary, but not separately for the two language subgroups. In verbally fluent individuals, only age was significantly inversely associated with nongenerative speech use such that older individuals produced fewer nongenerative utterances. In minimally verbal individuals, there were no associations between any of the individual characteristics and nongenerative speech use. In terms of linguistic structure, the lexical diversity of nongenerative and spontaneous utterances of both language subgroups was comparable. Morphosyntactic complexity was higher for spontaneous compared to nongenerative utterances in verbally fluent individuals, while no differences emerged between the two utterance types in minimally verbal individuals. Conclusions Nongenerative speech presents differently in minimally verbal and verbally fluent autistic individuals. Although present in verbally fluent individuals, nongenerative speech appears to be a major feature of spoken language in minimally verbal children and adolescents. Implications Our results advocate for more research on the expressive language profiles of autistic children and adolescents who remain minimally verbal and for further investigations of nongenerative speech, which is usually excluded from language samples. Given its prevalence in the spoken language of minimally verbal individuals, nongenerative speech could be used as a way to engage in and maintain communication with this subgroup of autistic individuals. En ligne : https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/23969415241262207 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=538 [article] Frequency and characteristics of echoes and self-repetitions in minimally verbal and verbally fluent autistic individuals [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Pauline MAES, Auteur ; Chelsea LA VALLE, Auteur ; Helen TAGER-FLUSBERG, Auteur. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Autism & Developmental Language Impairments > 9 (January-December 2024) Mots-clés : Echolalia  self-repetition  nongenerative speech  minimally verbal  autism Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Background and aims Nongenerative speech is the rote repetition of words or phrases heard from others or oneself. The most common manifestations of nongenerative speech are immediate and delayed echolalia, which are a well-attested clinical feature and a salient aspect of atypical language use in autism. However, there are no current estimates of the frequency of nongenerative speech, and the individual characteristics associated with nongenerative speech use in individuals across the autistic spectrum are poorly understood. In this study, we aim to measure and characterize spontaneous and nongenerative speech use in minimally verbal and verbally fluent autistic children and adolescents. Methods Participants were 50 minimally verbal and 50 verbally fluent autistic individuals aged 6 to 21 years. Spontaneous and nongenerative speech samples were derived from SALT transcripts of ADOS-2 assessments. Participants' intelligible speech utterances were categorized as spontaneous or nongenerative. Spontaneous versus nongenerative utterances were compared between language subgroups on frequency of use and linguistic structure. Associations between nongenerative speech use and a series of individual characteristics (ADOS-2 subscale scores, nonverbal IQ, receptive vocabulary, and chronological age) were investigated over the whole sample and for each language subgroup independently. Results Almost all participants produced some nongenerative speech. Minimally verbal individuals produced significantly more nongenerative than spontaneous utterances, and more nongenerative utterances compared to verbally fluent individuals. Verbally fluent individuals produced limited rates of nongenerative utterances, in comparison to their much higher rates of spontaneous utterances. Across the sample, nongenerative utterance rates were associated with nonverbal IQ and receptive vocabulary, but not separately for the two language subgroups. In verbally fluent individuals, only age was significantly inversely associated with nongenerative speech use such that older individuals produced fewer nongenerative utterances. In minimally verbal individuals, there were no associations between any of the individual characteristics and nongenerative speech use. In terms of linguistic structure, the lexical diversity of nongenerative and spontaneous utterances of both language subgroups was comparable. Morphosyntactic complexity was higher for spontaneous compared to nongenerative utterances in verbally fluent individuals, while no differences emerged between the two utterance types in minimally verbal individuals. Conclusions Nongenerative speech presents differently in minimally verbal and verbally fluent autistic individuals. Although present in verbally fluent individuals, nongenerative speech appears to be a major feature of spoken language in minimally verbal children and adolescents. Implications Our results advocate for more research on the expressive language profiles of autistic children and adolescents who remain minimally verbal and for further investigations of nongenerative speech, which is usually excluded from language samples. Given its prevalence in the spoken language of minimally verbal individuals, nongenerative speech could be used as a way to engage in and maintain communication with this subgroup of autistic individuals. En ligne : https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/23969415241262207 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=538

No preference for direct versus averted gaze in autistic adults: a reinforced preferential looking paradigm / Elise CLIN in Molecular Autism, 11 (2020)  

Public ISBD [article]  inMolecular Autism > 11 (2020) Titre : No preference for direct versus averted gaze in autistic adults: a reinforced preferential looking paradigm Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Elise CLIN, Auteur ; Pauline MAES, Auteur ; Fanny STERCQ, Auteur ; Mikhail KISSINE, Auteur Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Adults  Alexithymia  Autism  Eye gaze direction  Eye-tracking  Gender  Reinforced preferential looking paradigm  Social anxiety  Social attention  or publication of this article. Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : BACKGROUND: With the overarching objective to gain better insights into social attention in autistic adults, the present study addresses three outstanding issues about face processing in autism. First, do autistic adults display a preference for mouths over eyes; second, do they avoid direct gaze; third, is atypical visual exploration of faces in autism mediated by gender, social anxiety or alexithymia? METHODS: We used a novel reinforced preferential looking paradigm with a group of autistic adults (n?=?43, 23 women) pairwise matched on age with neurotypical participants (n?=?43, 21 women). Participants watched 28 different pairs of 5 s video recordings of a speaking person: the two videos, simultaneously displayed on the screen, were identical except that gaze was directed at the camera in one video and averted in the other. After a 680 ms transition phase, a short reinforcement animation appeared on the side that had displayed the direct gaze. RESULTS: None of the groups showed a preference for mouths over eyes. However, neurotypical participants fixated significantly more the stimuli with direct gaze, while no such preference emerged in autistic participants. As the experiment progressed, neurotypical participants also increasingly anticipated the appearance of the reinforcement, based on the location of the stimulus with the direct gaze, while no such anticipation emerged in autistic participants. LIMITATIONS: Our autistic participants scored higher on the social anxiety and alexithymia questionnaires than neurotypicals. Future studies should match neurotypical and autistic participants on social anxiety and alexithymia and complement questionnaires with physiological measures of anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: The absence of preference for direct versus averted gaze in the autistic group is probably due to difficulties in distinguishing eye gaze direction, potentially linked to a reduced spontaneous exploration or avoidance of the eye region. Social attention and preference for direct versus averted gaze correlated with alexithymia and social anxiety scores, but not gender. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-020-00398-3 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=438 [article] No preference for direct versus averted gaze in autistic adults: a reinforced preferential looking paradigm [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Elise CLIN, Auteur ; Pauline MAES, Auteur ; Fanny STERCQ, Auteur ; Mikhail KISSINE, Auteur. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Molecular Autism > 11 (2020) Mots-clés : Adults  Alexithymia  Autism  Eye gaze direction  Eye-tracking  Gender  Reinforced preferential looking paradigm  Social anxiety  Social attention  or publication of this article. Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : BACKGROUND: With the overarching objective to gain better insights into social attention in autistic adults, the present study addresses three outstanding issues about face processing in autism. First, do autistic adults display a preference for mouths over eyes; second, do they avoid direct gaze; third, is atypical visual exploration of faces in autism mediated by gender, social anxiety or alexithymia? METHODS: We used a novel reinforced preferential looking paradigm with a group of autistic adults (n?=?43, 23 women) pairwise matched on age with neurotypical participants (n?=?43, 21 women). Participants watched 28 different pairs of 5 s video recordings of a speaking person: the two videos, simultaneously displayed on the screen, were identical except that gaze was directed at the camera in one video and averted in the other. After a 680 ms transition phase, a short reinforcement animation appeared on the side that had displayed the direct gaze. RESULTS: None of the groups showed a preference for mouths over eyes. However, neurotypical participants fixated significantly more the stimuli with direct gaze, while no such preference emerged in autistic participants. As the experiment progressed, neurotypical participants also increasingly anticipated the appearance of the reinforcement, based on the location of the stimulus with the direct gaze, while no such anticipation emerged in autistic participants. LIMITATIONS: Our autistic participants scored higher on the social anxiety and alexithymia questionnaires than neurotypicals. Future studies should match neurotypical and autistic participants on social anxiety and alexithymia and complement questionnaires with physiological measures of anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: The absence of preference for direct versus averted gaze in the autistic group is probably due to difficulties in distinguishing eye gaze direction, potentially linked to a reduced spontaneous exploration or avoidance of the eye region. Social attention and preference for direct versus averted gaze correlated with alexithymia and social anxiety scores, but not gender. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-020-00398-3 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=438

---

1 (1 - 3 / 3)