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Attention to Social Communication: An infant siblings project

This project aims to examine the preferences and attention biases for speech and social communication in infants at risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and how they are associated with language abilities and ASD diagnoses at 3 years of age.

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Attention to Social Communication: An infant siblings project

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  1. Attention to Social Communication: An infant siblings project Dr. Suzanne Curtin University of Calgary and Dr. Shirley Leew Alberta Health Services

  2. Big Picture • To examine whether infants at risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder exhibit different preferences for speech and communication. • To examine whether attention biases for speech and social communication in infants at risk follow the same developmental time course as typically developing infants • To ascertain if differences in attention preferences, skills and responses by infants at risk are prospectively associated with language abilities and diagnoses of ASD at 3 years of age.

  3. Why early social attention and language development? • We need more information about individual differences in and preferences for attention to predict communication and language outcomes for infants • Later language disabilities may be associated with an underlying attention-to-language deficit or with social communication deficits

  4. Conceptual Model

  5. Our Babysibs Study will… • Provide information about communicative development in infants who are at increased risk for ASD. • Investigate longitudinally 2 groups of age- and sex-matched infants: • Later-born infant siblings of children already diagnosed with ASD (SIBS-ASD) • Later-born typically developing infants (SIBS-TD)

  6. Current Project Tasks: Speech preference: Speech/Non-Speech Infant-directed speech/adult-directed speech Processing Rhythm Social communicative: NCAST -- caregiver/child interaction CSBS-DP -- joint attention Language and cognitive development: Mullen -- motor and cognitive development CDI -- language development ASD: AOSI -- autism observation scale ✔ ✔ ✔

  7. Attending to Speech • The first step is to separate speech from other acoustic signals in the environment by attending to, and preferring, sounds produced by the vocal tract. • Preference for speech • Caregivers modify their speech to draw the infant’s attention to relevant aspects of the speech signal (Infant-directed speech, IDS). • IDS is involved in the regulation of arousal and attention in infants, the learning of emotional intent, and the highlighting of linguistic structure.

  8. Attending to Social Communication • Joint Attention: • Capacity of infants/toddlers to coordinate their attention to an object/event with a social partner and to communicate about their focus of attention. • Following the attention direction of their partner. • Spontaneously initiating coordinated or shared attention with a social partner • The beginning of referential and symbolic communication

  9. Attention and Autism Spectrum Disorder • Children with ASD do not prefer speech over non-speech, nor do they prefer infant-directed speech. • Joint attention is uniquely linked to language development in children with ASD. • impairment in joint attention was found to be the most sensitive measure of social attention, making it useful for identifying children with ASD.

  10. Current Project • Methods • Current Enrollment: Infants tested: • Sibs-ASD: 12 • Sibs-TD: 26

  11. Measures

  12. Methods: Behavioural & physiological Looking time and heart-rate Speech/Non-Speech Stimuli

  13. Speech Non-Speech

  14. Preliminary Results: 12-months

  15. CSBS - DP

  16. Autism Observation Scale for Infants (AOSI) • Identify and monitor early signs of autism in infants at heightened risk • 18-item direct observational measure for infants 6-18 months • Target behaviors include (not limited to) eye contact, atypical motor/sensory behaviour, social interest, shared affect, attentional disengagement…

  17. AOSI

  18. Discussion • Exploration of infants’ preferences for speech and their social communicative development (JA) will allow us to collect prospective data and identify early markers for any potential language problems. • Studies of older children diagnosed with ASD have demonstrated that they do not pattern with typically developing children on a number of these measures. • Atypical patterning might be exhibited early in infancy.

  19. Team Members: Danielle Droucker Tavis Campbell Margaret Clarke Peter Faris Joanne Volden Athena Vouloumanos Lonnie Zwaigenbaum Project Coordinators Sarah Wills Melanie Khu Community Partners Society for Treatment of Autism PAART Renfrew Coders and Volunteers: Jen, Nicole, Tracey, Jenna, Becky Funding: Alberta Centre for Child, Family, and Community Research Special thanks to the participating families. SpeechDevelopmentLab Acknowledgments

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