Atypical behaviors in children with autism and children with a history of language impairment.
Autistic kids show two separable behavior waves—early eating/sleep issues and later self-injury/tantrums—so screen and treat each on its own schedule.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked parents to recall odd behaviors in 35 autistic kids and the kids with past language trouble.
They listed sleep, eating, self-injury, tantrums, and repeated actions.
Then they grouped the kids by when these problems first showed up.
What they found
Two clear clusters popped out.
Cluster one: feeding and sleep issues start very early, before speech delays are clear.
Cluster two: self-injury and big tantrums start later, around age three.
Autistic kids had both clusters far more often than language-impaired kids.
How this fits with other research
Warnes et al. (2005) also used parent recall but saw no link between early onset timing and later skills.
Chou et al. (2007) go deeper: timing still does not predict IQ, yet it does predict which behavior cluster you will see.
Early et al. (2012) later counted self-injury in a large share of autistic people, backing the later cluster.
Siegel (2018) showed that strong hospital treatment can cut those same severe behaviors, proving the cluster is changeable.
Why it matters
You can treat feeding and sleep issues right after diagnosis, even before full ADOS results.
Track self-injury and tantrums at age three; start prevention plans then.
Use two separate data sheets: one for early care routines, one for later safety behaviors.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The frequency, course, and inter-relationships of atypical eating, sleeping, self-injurious behavior, aggression and temper tantrums in children with autism and children with a history of language impairment (HLI), was investigated using a parent interview that was created to examine these problem behaviors. The relationships between these behaviors and language, IQ, severity of autistic symptoms and depression were also assessed. Atypical eating behavior, abnormal sleep patterns, temper tantrums, and self-injurious behavior were significantly more common in the children with autism than those with HLI. Within the autism group, children who exhibited more atypical behaviors tended to have a lower nonverbal IQ, lower levels of expressive language, more severe social deficits and more repetitive behaviors. No relationship between the number of atypical behaviors and measures of cognitive or language ability was noted in the HLI group. However, having more atypical behaviors was related to increased restricted, repetitive behaviors in children with HLI. The atypical behaviors could be divided into two groups: abnormal eating and sleeping, which were independent and tended to begin early in life; and self-injury, tantrums and aggression, which began later and were inter-related. Sleep abnormalities were more common in children (groups combined) diagnosed with major depression.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2007 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2006.02.003