A quarterly publication of the Autism Research Institute
Spring, 2020 | Number 2, Volume 34
Analyzing just six minutes of toddlers’ vocalizations may help clinicians identify children at elevated risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASD), according to a new study by Elena Tenenbaum and colleagues.
The study involved toddlers between 16 and 31 months of age. Of the children, 22 had confirmed diagnoses of ASD, 8 had confirmed developmental or language delays (DLD) but not autism, and 22 were neurotypical controls.
The researchers sat the toddlers on a caregiver’s lap and showed them six minutes of videos on a tablet. The videos, designed to elicit behaviors associated with ASD, included a mirror display in which toddlers could see their own faces; cascading bubbles; a mechanical bunny interacting with other animal puppets; children arguing over a toy; and other clips of social and nonsocial stimuli. At three intervals, the clinician also called the child’s name to see how the child responded.
A coder blind to the children’s diagnoses coded the children’s vocalizations as nonsyllabic (consonant-only or vowel-only sounds that were not part of words), canonical (nonword consonant-vowel combinations), or syllabic (canonical vocalizations plus syllabic vocalizations from words containing at least one vowel). The coder also assessed whether a child spoke any words at all.
The researchers report that:
—Children with ASD or DLD were less likely to produce words than the neurotypical participants.
—The ratio of syllabic vocalizations to all vocalizations was higher in neurotypical children than in those in the ASD or DLD groups.
—The rates of nonsyllabic vocalizations were higher in the ASD group than in either the TD or DLD groups.
The researchers say, “Those producing more nonsyllabic vocalizations were 24 times more likely to be diagnosed with ASD.” They conclude, “These results lend support to previous findings that early vocalizations might be useful in identifying risk for ASD in toddlers and demonstrate the feasibility of using a scalable tablet-based app for assessing vocalizations in the context of a routine pediatric visit.”
“A six-minute measure of vocalizations in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder,” Elena J. Tenenbaum, Kimberly L.H. Carpenter, Maura Sabatos-DeVito, Jordan Hashemi, Saritha Vermeer, Guillermo Sapiro, and Geraldine Dawson, Autism Research, March 25, 2020 (free online). Address: Elena Tenenbaum, Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development, Duke University School of Medicine, Hock Plaza, 2424 Erwin Road, Suite 501, Durham, NC 27705, [email protected].
