Barokova Mihaela D, Hassan Sommer, Lee Collin, Xu Mengyuan, Tager-Flusberg Helen
Center for Autism Research Excellence, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, MA.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2020 Dec 14;63(12):4018-4028. doi: 10.1044/2020_JSLHR-20-00343. Epub 2020 Nov 9.
Purpose We aimed to compare the speech of parents and examiners as they elicited language samples from minimally and low-verbal (MLV) children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), while following the same semi-structured elicitation protocol, Eliciting Language Samples for Analysis-Adolescents (ELSA-A). We also compared the speech elicited from the MLV children/adolescents by their parents at home and by trained examiners in the lab and assessed the feasibility of parents collecting language samples at home. Method Thirty-three (five female, 28 male) MLV children and adolescents with ASD between the ages of 6;6 and 19;7 (years;months) participated. All participants were administered standardized assessments, and a trained examiner collected an ELSA-A language sample from them in the lab. The parents of 22 of the children/adolescents collected an ELSA-A sample at home. All language samples were transcribed following standard procedures, and measures of expressive language were extracted to assess the quantity of speech, its syntactic complexity, and lexical diversity. At the end of the study, parents filled out a feedback survey about their experiences collecting ELSA-A. Results On average, parents produced twice as much speech as trained examiners during ELSA-A. However, their speech did not differ in syntactic complexity or lexical diversity. When with their parents, the MLV children/adolescents also produced twice as much speech than with trained examiners. In addition, their samples were more lexically diverse. Overall, parents elicited longer language samples but administered fewer of the ELSA-A activities. Nevertheless, the majority of parents rated the experience of collecting language samples at home favorably. Conclusions When parents collect language samples at home, their older MLV children/adolescents with ASD produce more speech and engage in more back-and-forth verbal interactions than when with trained examiners. Because parent-elicited language samples allow for a richer assessment of children's expressive language abilities, future studies should focus on identifying ways to encourage parents to collect data at home.
目的 我们旨在比较家长和考官在按照相同的半结构化引出协议《青少年语言样本分析引出法》（ELSA-A），从患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的极少语言和低语言（MLV）儿童及青少年中引出语言样本时的言语情况。我们还比较了在家中家长和在实验室中经过培训的考官从MLV儿童/青少年那里引出的言语，并评估了家长在家中收集语言样本的可行性。方法 33名（5名女性，28名男性）年龄在6岁6个月至19岁7个月之间的患有ASD的MLV儿童及青少年参与了研究。所有参与者都接受了标准化评估，一名经过培训的考官在实验室中从他们那里收集了一份ELSA-A语言样本。其中22名儿童/青少年的家长在家中收集了一份ELSA-A样本。所有语言样本都按照标准程序进行转录，并提取表达性语言的指标，以评估言语数量、句法复杂性和词汇多样性。在研究结束时，家长填写了一份关于他们收集ELSA-A经历的反馈调查问卷。结果 平均而言，在ELSA-A过程中，家长说出的言语量是经过培训的考官的两倍。然而，他们言语的句法复杂性和词汇多样性并无差异。与家长在一起时，MLV儿童/青少年说出的言语量也是与经过培训的考官在一起时的两倍。此外，他们的样本词汇更加多样。总体而言，家长引出的语言样本更长，但实施的ELSA-A活动更少。尽管如此，大多数家长对在家中收集语言样本的经历给予了好评。结论 当家长在家中收集语言样本时，他们患有ASD的年龄较大的MLV儿童/青少年比与经过培训的考官在一起时能说出更多言语，并进行更多的来回言语互动。由于家长引出的语言样本能够更全面地评估儿童的表达性语言能力，未来的研究应专注于确定鼓励家长在家中收集数据的方法。
