Department of Psychology, Center for Innovative Research in Autism, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA.
Department of Psychology, New York University, 4 Washington Place, Room 406, New York, NY, 10003, USA.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2024 Aug;54(8):2847-2859. doi: 10.1007/s10803-023-06030-6.
New motor skills can shape how infants communicate with their caregivers. For example, learning to walk allows infants to move faster and farther than they previously could, in turn allowing them to approach their caregivers more frequently to gesture or vocalize. Does the link between walking and communication differ for infants later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), whose communicative and motor development differs from their neurotypically developing peers? We prospectively followed two groups of infants longitudinally during the transition from crawling to walking: (1) N = 25 infants with no family history of ASD; and (2) N = 91 infants with an older sibling with ASD. Fifteen infants were later diagnosed with ASD, and 26 infants showed a language delay (but did not receive an ASD diagnosis). After learning to walk, infants without ASD or language delay showed considerable changes in their communication: They gestured more frequently, and increasingly coordinated their gestures and vocalizations with locomotion (e.g., by approaching a caregiver and showing a toy). Infants with language delay showed similar but attenuated growth in their communication. However, infants later diagnosed with ASD did not display enhanced communication after they began to walk.
新的运动技能可以塑造婴儿与照顾者的沟通方式。例如，学会走路使婴儿能够比以前更快、更远地移动，从而使他们更频繁地接近照顾者，以便手势或发声。对于后来被诊断出患有自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 的婴儿来说，这种与行走相关的沟通联系是否不同，因为他们的沟通和运动发展与神经发育正常的同龄人不同？我们前瞻性地对两组婴儿进行了纵向研究，观察他们从爬行到行走的过渡阶段：（1）N=25 名无 ASD 家族史的婴儿；（2）N=91 名有 ASD 年长兄弟姐妹的婴儿。15 名婴儿后来被诊断出患有 ASD，26 名婴儿表现出语言延迟（但未被诊断出 ASD）。学会走路后，没有 ASD 或语言延迟的婴儿在沟通方面表现出了显著的变化：他们更频繁地使用手势，并且越来越协调他们的手势和发声与运动（例如，接近照顾者并展示玩具）。语言延迟的婴儿也表现出类似但减弱的沟通增长。然而，后来被诊断出患有 ASD 的婴儿在开始走路后并没有表现出增强的沟通能力。
