The Early Communication Indicator (ECI) was designed to measure expressive communication progress in young children. We evaluated using the 6-min ECI procedure for a new purpose-a sampling context for stable measures of vocal development of young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We evaluated how many ECI sessions were required to adequately stabilize estimates of volubility, communicative use, and phonological complexity of vocalizations at two periods (average of 10 months apart). Participants included 83 young children with ASD (M age = 23.33 months). At study initiation, two phonological complexity variables required two sessions; other variables required three. At study endpoint, all variables required fewer sessions. Findings support the feasibility and stability of using the ECI for the new purpose.

中文翻译：

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自闭症谱系障碍儿童早期沟通指标期间测得的声乐变量的稳定性。

早期沟通指标（ECI）旨在衡量幼儿的表达沟通进度。我们针对新目的使用6分钟ECI程序进行了评估-一种用于稳定测量自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）幼儿声音发育的抽样环境。我们评估了需要多少个ECI会话才能充分稳定两个阶段（平均间隔10个月）的发声能力，交流性和语音复杂性的估计。参加者包括83名ASD幼儿（M年龄= 23.33个月）。在研究开始时，两个语音复杂度变量需要两个会话。其他变量需要三个。在研究终点，所有变量都需要更少的会话。研究结果支持了将ECI用于新目的的可行性和稳定性。