Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Autism Res. 2024 Feb;17(2):381-394. doi: 10.1002/aur.3079. Epub 2023 Dec 27.
Among the approximately one-third of autistic individuals who experience considerable challenges in acquiring spoken language and are minimally verbal (MV), relatively little is known about the range of their receptive language abilities. This study included 1579 MV autistic children and adolescents between 5 and 18 years of age drawn from the National Database for Autism Research and the SFARI Base data repository. MV autistic children and adolescents demonstrated significantly lower receptive language compared to the norms on standardized language assessment and parent report measures. Moreover, their receptive language gap widened with age. Overall, our sample demonstrated significantly better receptive than expressive language. However, at the individual level, only about 25% of MV autistic children and adolescents demonstrated significantly better receptive language relative to their minimal expressive levels. Social skills explained a significant proportion of the variance in parent-reported receptive language skills, while motor skills were the most significant predictor of greater receptive-expressive discrepancy. Findings from this study revealed the heterogeneous language profiles in MV autistic children and adolescents, underscoring the importance of individualizing interventions to match their different communication strengths and needs and integrating multiple interconnected areas to optimize their overall development of language comprehension, socialization, and general motor skills.
在大约三分之一存在语言获取困难且语言能力极低（MV）的自闭症个体中，他们的接受性语言能力范围相对较少为人所知。本研究纳入了来自自闭症国家数据库和 SFARI 基础数据存储库的 1579 名 5 至 18 岁的 MV 自闭症儿童和青少年。MV 自闭症儿童和青少年在标准化语言评估和家长报告测量上的接受性语言能力明显低于正常水平。此外，他们的接受性语言差距随着年龄的增长而扩大。总体而言，我们的样本表现出明显更好的接受性语言能力而非表达性语言能力。然而，在个体水平上，只有约 25%的 MV 自闭症儿童和青少年在接受性语言能力方面明显优于他们的最低表达水平。社交技能解释了家长报告的接受性语言技能中很大一部分的差异，而运动技能是更大的接受-表达差异的最显著预测因素。本研究的结果揭示了 MV 自闭症儿童和青少年语言能力的异质性，强调了个性化干预措施的重要性，以满足他们不同的沟通优势和需求，并整合多个相互关联的领域，以优化他们整体的语言理解、社交和一般运动技能的发展。
