Comparison of language and social communication abilities of toddlers who are at risk of autism spectrum disorders and developmental language delay

Abstract

Objectives: Toddlers with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and those with developmental language delays (DLD) commonly demonstrate language and social communication problems. The purpose of present study is to compare the language and social communication abilities of toddlers who are at risk of ASD or DLD to those of typically developing toddlers (TD). Methods: Eleven toddlers in at-risk ASD aged between 23-32 months, 11 toddlers with DLD, and 11 TD toddlers matched on chronological age with the at-risk ASD toddlers participated in this study. Language and social communication abilities of all toddlers were assessed using SELSI, K M-B CDI, and CSBS-DP. Results: The results were as follows: There were significant differences among the three groups in language performances. The at-risk ASD and DLD groups showed significantly lower scores than the TD group in the results of all language tests. The at-risk ASD group showed significant lower performances than the DLD group in the receptive language only. There were significant differences among the three groups in the overall and the three composites scores of CSBS-DP. The at-risk ASD group scored lower than the DLD group on the emotion and eye gaze, gestures using and language comprehension clusters in CSBS-DP. The DLD group only indicated lower scores than the TD group on the consonant and word production subitems. Conclusion: Toddlers with at risk ASD and those with DLD displayed different characteristics from TD toddlers in language and social communication abilities. Implications on early identification and intervention for toddlers with ASD and DLD were being discussed based on the results.