Intact Neural Responding to Hearing One's Own Name in Children with Autism.
Nine-month-old siblings of autistic children hear the same rich language as low-risk babies.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched 9-month-old babies at high or low risk for autism.
They counted each baby’s squeals, babbles, and cries.
They also timed how quickly moms answered these sounds.
High-risk babies had an older sibling with autism.
Low-risk babies had no family history of the disorder.
What they found
Both groups made the same number of sounds.
Moms answered just as fast in both groups.
No differences showed up at 9 months.
The quality of mom talk stayed high for all babies.
How this fits with other research
Maddox et al. (2015) saw less eye contact and smiling at 11 months in babies later diagnosed.
Their parent behavior scores looked the same, matching the new null result.
Toth et al. (2007) found language delays by 18 months in non-autistic siblings.
The gap may open over the study period, not before.
Perryman et al. (2013) linked more follow-in comments to better toddler language.
Together the papers trace a timeline: equal input at 9 months, subtle social drop at 11, then measurable language lag by 18.
Why it matters
You can reassure worried parents of 9-month-old siblings.
Their talk is already on track.
Keep watching social and language milestones after the first birthday.
If you screen again at 12–18 months, earlier parent training can start before delays grow.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder display differences in early language and social communication skills beginning as early as the first year of life. While environmental influences on early language development are well documented in other infant populations, they have received relatively little attention inside of the infant sibling context. In this study, we analyzed home video diaries collected prospectively as part of a longitudinal study of infant siblings. Infant vowel and consonant-vowel vocalizations and maternal language-promoting and non-promoting verbal responses were scored for 30 infant siblings and 30 low risk control infants at 9 months of age. Analyses evaluated whether infant siblings or their mothers exhibited differences from low risk dyads in vocalization frequency or distribution, and whether mothers' responses were associated with other features of the high risk context. Analyses were conducted with respect to both initial risk group and preliminary outcome classification. Overall, we found no differences in infants' consonant-vowel vocalizations, the frequency of overall maternal utterances, or the distribution of mothers' response types. Both groups of infants produced more vowel than consonant-vowel vocalizations, and both groups of mothers responded to consonant-vowel vocalizations with more language-promoting than non-promoting responses. These results indicate that as a group, mothers of high risk infants provide equally high quality linguistic input to their infants in the first year of life and suggest that impoverished maternal linguistic input does not contribute to high risk infants' initial language difficulties. Implications for intervention strategies are also discussed.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1016/j.ijdevneu.2004.05.001