Background and Aims:

The purpose of this exploratory study was to expand existing literature on prelinguistic vocalizations by reporting results of the first home-based longitudinal study examining a wide variety of behaviors and characteristics, including early vocalizations, across infants at low and elevated risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The study of vocalizations and vocalization changes across early developmental periods shows promise in reflecting early clinically significant differences across infants at low and elevated risk of ASD. Observations of early vocalizations and their differences during infancy could provide a reliable and essential component of an early developmental profile that would lower the average diagnostic age for ASD. However, studies employing observation of vocalization behaviors have been limited and often conducted in laboratory settings, reducing the external generalization of the findings.

Methods:

The present study was conducted to determine the consistency of previous findings with longitudinal data collected in home environments. Infants in the present study represented elevated risk from two etiological backgrounds, (a) infants born prematurely and with low birth weight and (b) infants who had an older sibling diagnosed with ASD. All data were collected in the infants’ homes and compared with data collected from infants with low likelihood of ASD. The study included 44 participants (31 in the low-risk sample, 13 in the high-risk sample) with vocalization behaviors observed at 6- and 12-months through 20-min semi-structured play interactions with caregivers. Observations were video-recorded and later coded for speech and non-speech vocalizations.

Results:

Differences in the 6-month vocalization behaviors were not statistically significant across risk levels of ASD. By 12 months; however, risk group differences were evident in the total number of vocalizations overall with specific differences across groups representing moderate to large, clinically relevant effects. Infants at low risk of ASD demonstrated significantly greater developmental change between 6- and 12-months than did the infants at high risk. Data were also reviewed for differences across high-risk group etiologies.

Conclusions:

The present study was unique and innovative in a number of ways as the first home-based longitudinal study examining infant vocal behaviors across low and high risk of ASD. Many of the present study findings were consistent with previous cross-sectional investigations of infants at elevated risk for ASD, indicating support for further home-based longitudinal study in this area. Findings also indicated some preliminary subgroup differences between high-risk etiologies of ASD. Vocalization differences across high risk groups had not been previously addressed in the literature.

Implications:

Vocalization differences are notable by 12-months of age between infants at low and elevated risk of ASD and infants at high risk demonstrated reduced developmental changes between 6- and 12-months compared to the infants at low risk. Observation of early infant vocalization behaviors may reasonably occur in the home, providing early childhood professionals and researchers with empirical support for data collection of child-caregiver interactions in this setting. Potential differences across high-risk etiologies warrant further investigation.

中文翻译：

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一项以家庭为基础的对自闭症低风险和高风险婴儿发声行为的纵向研究

背景和目标：

这项探索性研究的目的是通过报告第一个以家庭为基础的纵向研究的结果来扩展关于前语言发声的现有文献，该研究检查了自闭症谱系障碍低风险和高风险婴儿的各种行为和特征，包括早期发声（自闭症谱系障碍）。对早期发育阶段的发声和发声变化的研究表明，有望反映 ASD 低风险和高风险婴儿的早期临床显着差异。对早期发声的观察及其在婴儿期的差异可以为早期发育概况提供可靠且重要的组成部分，从而降低 ASD 的平均诊断年龄。然而，

方法：

本研究旨在确定先前研究结果与在家庭环境中收集的纵向数据的一致性。本研究中的婴儿代表两种病因学背景的高风险，(a) 早产和低出生体重的婴儿，以及 (b) 有被诊断患有 ASD 的哥哥姐姐的婴儿。所有数据均在婴儿家中收集，并与从自闭症可能性较低的婴儿那里收集的数据进行比较。该研究包括 44 名参与者（低风险样本中有 31 名，高风险样本中有 13 名），他们在 6 个月和 12 个月时通过与看护者进行 20 分钟的半结构化游戏互动观察到发声行为。对观察结果进行录像，然后针对语音和非语音发声进行编码。

结果：

6 个月发声行为的差异在 ASD 风险水平上没有统计学意义。到 12 个月；然而，风险组别差异在总体发声总数上很明显，各组别之间的特定差异代表了中等到较大的临床相关影响。与高危婴儿相比，自闭症低危婴儿在 6 至 12 个月期间表现出明显更大的发育变化。还审查了高危人群病因学差异的数据。

结论：

作为第一个以家庭为基础的纵向研究，本研究在许多方面都是独特和创新的，研究了 ASD 低风险和高风险婴儿的声音行为。目前的许多研究结果与之前对 ASD 风险较高的婴儿进行的横断面调查一致，表明支持在该领域进行进一步的以家庭为基础的纵向研究。研究结果还表明 ASD 的高危病因之间存在一些初步的亚组差异。以前的文献中没有提到高风险群体之间的发声差异。

影响：

在 12 个月大时，ASD 低风险和高风险婴儿之间的发声差异是显着的，而高风险婴儿在 6 个月和 12 个月大时与低风险婴儿相比表现出发育变化减少。对早期婴儿发声行为的观察可能合理地发生在家中，为早期儿童专业人士和研究人员在这种情况下收集儿童与看护者互动的数据提供经验支持。高风险病因之间的潜在差异需要进一步调查。