Approximately 30% of children diagnosed with autism remain minimally verbal past age 5. Interventions are often effective in increasing spoken communication for some of these children. Clinical and research decisions would be facilitated by identifying early indicators of progress in interventions. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between speech sound measures obtained from the early phases of treatment and later treatment outcomes in children with autism and minimal verbal skills. Twenty-three children (18 boys) between 5 and 9 years of age participated. We compared scores reflecting the phonemic features of word attempts produced during probes, and the number of correct words after 4 weeks of intervention to later word learning outcomes. Correlational and hierarchical regression analyses showed that both predictors were positively correlated with outcomes, but the phonemic scores were more strongly related than number of correct words. We conclude that phonemic scoring may be a useful measure to determine proximal gains in a spoken word learning intervention. Proximal measures are particularly helpful when trying to decide if the current course of intervention should be maintained or altered. https://register.clinicaltrials.gov/prs/app/action/LoginUser?ts=2&cx=-jg9qo3 .

中文翻译：

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预测自闭症和语言技能最低的儿童的单词学习进展

大约 30% 被诊断患有自闭症的儿童在 5 岁之后仍然保持最低限度的语言表达。干预措施通常可以有效地增加其中一些儿童的口语交流。确定干预进展的早期指标将有助于临床和研究决策。本研究的目的是调查从治疗早期获得的语音测量与自闭症和语言技能最低的儿童后期治疗结果之间的关系。23 名 5 至 9 岁的儿童（18 名男孩）参加了比赛。我们比较了反映在探测期间产生的单词尝试的音素特征的分数，以及干预 4 周后正确单词的数量与后来的单词学习结果。相关和层次回归分析表明，这两个预测因子都与结果呈正相关，但音位得分比正确单词的数量更密切相关。我们得出结论，音素评分可能是确定口语学习干预中近端收益的有用措施。在试图决定是否应该维持或改变当前的干预过程时，近端措施特别有用。https://register.clinicaltrials.gov/prs/app/action/LoginUser?ts=2&cx=-jg9qo3。在试图决定是否应该维持或改变当前的干预过程时，近端措施特别有用。https://register.clinicaltrials.gov/prs/app/action/LoginUser?ts=2&cx=-jg9qo3。在试图决定是否应该维持或改变当前的干预过程时，近端措施特别有用。https://register.clinicaltrials.gov/prs/app/action/LoginUser?ts=2&cx=-jg9qo3。