Meera Shoba S, Swaminathan Divya, Pawar Rahul, Yankowitz Lisa, Donovan Kevin, Khuu Khavi, Parish-Morris Julia, Warren Steven F, Estes Annette, Zwaigenbaum Lonnie, Clements Mark, Anderson David V, Schultz Robert T, Hazlett Heather C, John Tanya St, Pandey Juhi, Marrus Natasha, Botteron Kelly, Dager Stephen R, Swanson Meghan R, Watson Linda R, Piven Joseph
Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India; Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India.
Infant Behav Dev. 2025 Jun;79:102059. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102059. Epub 2025 Apr 25.
Canonical babbling (CB) is a critical developmental milestone that typically occurs in the second half of the first year of life. Studies focusing on CB in infants at elevated familial likelihood for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or who later receive an ASD diagnosis are limited and the evidence is mixed. CB comprises a series of canonical syllables (CS) which are defined as the rapid transitions between consonant-like sounds paired with vowel-like sounds (e.g., [gugugu]). One way of measuring CB is by computing canonical babbling ratio (CBR) i.e. total number of CS divided by the total number of syllables. If the child has reached the criterion of 0.15 CBR it is said that they have achieved the CB stage. For several years now, CB has been measured using short lab based or home-based video recordings which may not represent a child's natural vocalization pattern since child vocalizations fluctuate throughout the day. Day long audio recordings, that capture a child's vocalizations throughout the day, has the potential to overcome this limitation. Therefore, the current study aimed to answer whether CBRs computed from day-long audio recordings using the language environment analysis (LENA®) were different among infants at elevated familial likelihood for ASD who receive an ASD diagnosis (EL-ASD; n = 11), who did not receive an ASD diagnosis (EL-Neg; n = 32) and infants at low likelihood for ASD (LL-Neg; n = 25) at 9 and 15 months. The study also aimed to evaluate if there are group differences in reaching the canonical babbling stage at 9 and 15 months and are CBRs at 9 and 15 months associated with later language abilities at 24 months. Findings indicated no group differences in mean CBRs at 9 and 15 months and no association with later language abilities. However, we found that children in the EL-ASD group were less likely to reach the 0.15 CBR threshold for being in the canonical babbling stage by 9 months of age. Thus, suggesting that a diagnosis of ASD is associated with delays in CB for some children. Future work in this area must include a larger sample and more standardized annotation protocols to harmonize results across studies and ensure replication.
典型牙牙学语（CB）是一个关键的发育里程碑，通常出现在生命的第一年下半年。针对自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）家族患病风险较高或后来被诊断为ASD的婴儿的CB研究有限，证据也不一致。CB由一系列典型音节（CS）组成，这些音节被定义为类似辅音的声音与类似元音的声音之间的快速转换（例如，[gugugu]）。测量CB的一种方法是计算典型牙牙学语比率（CBR），即CS的总数除以音节的总数。如果儿童达到了0.15 CBR的标准，就可以说他们达到了CB阶段。多年来，CB一直通过基于实验室的短时间或家庭视频记录来测量，这可能无法代表儿童的自然发声模式，因为儿童的发声在一天中会有所波动。全天的音频记录能够捕捉儿童一整天的发声，有可能克服这一局限性。因此，本研究旨在回答，对于家族ASD患病风险较高且被诊断为ASD的婴儿（EL-ASD；n = 11）、未被诊断为ASD的婴儿（EL-Neg；n = 32）以及ASD患病风险较低的婴儿（LL-Neg；n = 25），在9个月和15个月时，使用语言环境分析（LENA®）从全天音频记录中计算出的CBR是否存在差异。该研究还旨在评估在9个月和15个月时达到典型牙牙学语阶段是否存在组间差异，以及9个月和15个月时的CBR是否与24个月时的后期语言能力相关。研究结果表明，在9个月和15个月时，平均CBR不存在组间差异，且与后期语言能力无关。然而，我们发现EL-ASD组的儿童在9个月大时达到典型牙牙学语阶段的0.15 CBR阈值的可能性较小。因此，这表明对于一些儿童来说，ASD的诊断与CB延迟有关。该领域未来的工作必须包括更大的样本和更标准化的注释方案，以统一各研究的结果并确保可重复性。
