Pecukonis Meredith, Butler Lindsay K, Tager-Flusberg Helen
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Department of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA.
Autism Res. 2024 Dec;17(12):2614-2627. doi: 10.1002/aur.3252. Epub 2024 Nov 4.
Language development in children with autism is influenced by proximal (e.g., parent language input) and distal (e.g., socioeconomic status) environmental constructs. Studies have found that "rich and responsive" parent language input supports autistic children's language development, and recent work has reported positive associations between measures of socioeconomic status (SES) and child language skills. However, little is known about how these proximal and distal environmental constructs interact to shape language development in autism. In a sample of 74 autistic school-aged children, the present study investigated the associations among measures of SES, the quantity and quality of language produced by parents and children during home-based dyadic parent-child interactions, and children's expressive and receptive language skills. Results showed that annual household income was positively associated with parent number of total words (NTW), parent number of different words (NDW), and parent mean length of utterance (MLU), while neither parent education level nor annual household income were significantly associated with measures of child language skills. Parent MLU was positively associated with child MLU and child expressive language skills. Findings suggest that annual household income may influence both the quantity and quality of parent language input, and that parent MLU, a qualitative measure of parent language input, may play a particularly important role in shaping autistic children's expressive language development. Future research should study longitudinal associations among SES, parent language input, and child language skills, as identifying environmental predictors of language skills in autism may facilitate the creation of more effective interventions that support language development.
自闭症儿童的语言发展受到近端（如父母语言输入）和远端（如社会经济地位）环境因素的影响。研究发现，“丰富且有回应的”父母语言输入有助于自闭症儿童的语言发展，近期研究报告了社会经济地位（SES）指标与儿童语言技能之间存在正相关。然而，对于这些近端和远端环境因素如何相互作用以塑造自闭症患者的语言发展，我们知之甚少。在一项对74名自闭症学龄儿童的研究中，本研究调查了SES指标、在家中二元亲子互动中父母和孩子产生的语言数量和质量，以及儿童的表达性和接受性语言技能之间的关联。结果显示，家庭年收入与父母总词汇量（NTW）、父母不同词汇量（NDW）以及父母平均语句长度（MLU）呈正相关，而父母教育水平和家庭年收入均与儿童语言技能指标无显著关联。父母的MLU与儿童的MLU及儿童表达性语言技能呈正相关。研究结果表明，家庭年收入可能会影响父母语言输入的数量和质量，并且父母的MLU作为父母语言输入的一个质量指标，可能在塑造自闭症儿童的表达性语言发展方面发挥特别重要的作用。未来的研究应探讨SES、父母语言输入和儿童语言技能之间的纵向关联，因为确定自闭症患者语言技能的环境预测因素可能有助于创建更有效的支持语言发展的干预措施。
