Infants at-risk for autism spectrum disorder: Patterns of vocalizations at 14 months.
A single 14-month vocal sample is too weak to predict later ASD—add gestures or repeated measures.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Garrido et al. (2017) watched 14-month-old babies who had an older sibling with autism.
The team recorded every sound the babies made.
They later checked which children were diagnosed with autism at age two.
What they found
The early sounds gave only weak hints about later autism.
Many babies who sounded the same ended up with different diagnoses.
Vocal patterns alone could not tell who would get an ASD label.
How this fits with other research
Gordon et al. (2015) and Veness et al. (2012) showed that counting gestures at the same age works better.
Their gesture scores clearly flagged later autism, while Dunia’s vocal scores did not.
Oller et al. (2025) extends the story: they tracked speech-like sounds every month and found a drop in boys who later had ASD.
That longer view gives clearer signal than the single 14-month snapshot Dunia used.
McGarty et al. (2018) also found parent reports at six months predicted outcome better than Dunia’s 14-month acoustics.
Why it matters
Do not rely on a one-time vocal sample at 14 months to rule autism in or out.
Pair the vocal check with a quick gesture tally or parent questionnaire for stronger screening.
If you must use audio, plan several time points; a falling trend means more than one noisy snapshot.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Differences in the early development of children are crucial for early detection of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous studies have shown large differences between children later diagnosed with ASD and their typically developing peers in the early use of canonical vocalizations (i.e., vocalizations that include well-formed consonant-vowel syllables) and the use of vocalizations for communicative purposes. In this prospective study, we examined the extent to which infant vocalizations at 14 months would predict Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) diagnostic symptom groups, that is, Autism, Spectrum, and Non-ASD, for 82 community-identified at-risk infants at 23 months. Thirty-minute video samples were coded with the intention to categorize and quantify speech (canonical/noncanonical and directed/nondirected) and nonspeech vocalizations (atypical, distress, and pleasure vocalizations). Our results revealed that more canonical directed (OR = 1.039, P = .036), and fewer noncanonical directed (OR=.607, P = .002) and noncanonical nondirected (OR = 1.200, P = .049) vocalizations were associated with a greater likelihood of being in the Non-ASD group versus the Autism group, with no variables significantly predicting Autism versus Spectrum group membership. Despite some statistically significant findings, models performed poorly in classifying children into correct ASD symptom group at age 23 months based on vocalizations at 14 months. Thus, the utility of infant vocalizations alone for predicting toddler clinical outcomes among infants initially identified at an elevated risk for ASD appears limited; however, considering the structure and function of early vocalizations combined with other early developmental and behavioral features may improve the confidence for clinicians in making an early diagnosis of ASD. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1372-1383. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2017 · doi:10.1002/aur.1788