Pilowsky Tammy, Yirmiya Nurit, Shalev Ruth S, Gross-Tsur Varda
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Israel.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2003 Sep;44(6):914-25. doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00175.
Language abilities of siblings of children with autism were examined to explore the possibility that language abilities are behavioral markers specific to the genetic liability for autism, as part of the broader phenotype.
Language abilities were compared among 27 siblings of children with autism, 23 siblings of children with mental retardation of unknown etiology (MR), and 22 siblings of children with developmental language disorders (DLD). Groups were matched by siblings' age, gender, birth order, family size, ethnicity, family income and by probands' gender and mental age.
Siblings of children with autism achieved higher scores than siblings of children with DLD on receptive, expressive, and total language scales of the Children's Evaluation of Language Fundamentals and on verbal IQ. Moreover, within the DLD group, school problems in the domains of reading and arithmetic were more prevalent than within the other two groups. Only 2 siblings of children with autism received clinical diagnoses based on DSM-IV criteria compared to 3 siblings of children with MR and 7 siblings of children with DLD.
After excluding data of the diagnosed siblings, no differences in language abilities could be discerned among the groups, except that more siblings in the DLD group were identified as having language difficulties. In summary, although language deficits characterize autism, siblings of children with autism were not found to demonstrate deficits in language skills assessed by formal language tests, IQ, or academic skills.
对自闭症儿童的兄弟姐妹的语言能力进行了研究，以探讨语言能力是否是自闭症遗传易感性所特有的行为标记，作为更广泛表型的一部分。
比较了27名自闭症儿童的兄弟姐妹、23名病因不明的智力发育迟缓（MR）儿童的兄弟姐妹和22名发育性语言障碍（DLD）儿童的兄弟姐妹的语言能力。根据兄弟姐妹的年龄、性别、出生顺序、家庭规模、种族、家庭收入以及先证者的性别和心理年龄对各组进行匹配。
在《儿童语言能力评估基础》的接受性、表达性和总语言量表以及言语智商方面，自闭症儿童的兄弟姐妹得分高于DLD儿童的兄弟姐妹。此外，在DLD组中，阅读和算术领域的学校问题比其他两组更普遍。根据《精神疾病诊断与统计手册》第四版标准，自闭症儿童的兄弟姐妹中只有2人接受了临床诊断，而MR儿童的兄弟姐妹中有3人，DLD儿童的兄弟姐妹中有7人。
排除已确诊兄弟姐妹的数据后，各组之间在语言能力方面没有差异，只是DLD组中有更多的兄弟姐妹被确定存在语言困难。总之，虽然语言缺陷是自闭症的特征，但未发现自闭症儿童的兄弟姐妹在通过正式语言测试、智商或学业技能评估的语言技能方面存在缺陷。
