Development of socio-communicative skills in 9- to 12-month-old individuals with fragile X syndrome.
Home videos reveal that infants with fragile X already lack requesting and imitation by 9–12 months—clear early warning signs.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers watched old home videos of babies with fragile X syndrome. They looked at how the babies tried to talk, point, or copy others. All babies were 9 to 12 months old.
The team wrote down every time a baby asked for something or imitated an action. They wanted to see which early skills were missing.
What they found
No baby in the videos ever asked for toys or help. Imitation was also absent. These gaps were clear before the first birthday.
The study shows these red flags can appear as early as nine months in fragile X.
How this fits with other research
Palomo et al. (2022) saw the same age window in autism. They found babies later diagnosed with autism also lacked response to name and joint attention. Both studies point to 9–12 months as a key time for early signs.
Receveur et al. (2005) looked at autism home videos too. They saw missing imitation in the first year. The new fragile X data match that pattern, giving a broader picture across conditions.
Baranek et al. (2005) studied the same fragile X babies but coded leg movements and posturing. Together, the two papers give a full profile: odd motor patterns plus absent communication signal fragile X before age one.
Why it matters
You can screen earlier. When a baby with fragile X shows no pointing, giving, or copying by nine months, start intervention right away. Use simple turn-taking games and imitation drills. Early action may lift later language and social scores.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We investigated the early socio-communicative development of individuals with fragile X syndrome (FXS) by undertaking a retrospective analysis of family videos. Videos were analyzed to identify existing communicative forms and functions. Analyses were undertaken on seven children who were later diagnosed with FXS. The children were filmed when they were 9-12 months old and before being diagnosed. Fourteen different communicative forms and six different communicative functions were observed. All participants were observed to express the functions of 'Attention to self' and 'Answering', but none indicated 'Requesting action', 'Requesting information', 'Choice making', or 'Imitating'. Results suggest that children with FXS may have a limited range of communicative forms and functions when they are from 9 to 12 months of age. However, further research is necessary to gain a specific developmental profile of socio-communicative forms and functions in FXS.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.3109/17518423.2013.837537