Language development trajectories in young children with developmental disabilities in Taiwan.
Early receptive and expressive language curves, not single scores, predict which Taiwanese toddlers with delays will later meet ASD criteria.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Yao et al. (2023) tracked language growth in 101 Taiwanese toddlers who had developmental delays. They used growth-mixture modeling to sort each child into a best-fitting pathway for receptive and expressive skills.
Three years later they checked which kids met ASD criteria and which did not. The goal was to see if early language paths, not just single test scores, forecast later diagnosis.
What they found
The toddlers split into three receptive-language paths and two expressive-language paths. Kids in the lowest receptive class and the slow expressive class were far more likely to receive an ASD diagnosis at follow-up.
Children whose language caught up or stayed only mildly delayed usually turned out to have non-ASD delays. In short, trajectory class predicted later diagnosis better than one-time scores.
How this fits with other research
Seiverling et al. (2018) ran a similar latent-class study and found the same pattern: a persistently low verbal path raised ASD odds, while a catch-up path pointed to other delays. The new work replicates those findings in Mandarin-speaking families.
Barbaro et al. (2012) first showed that a receptive-expressive gap at 18–24 months flags ASD risk. Pei-Yu et al. extend that idea by mapping full growth curves instead of single-time gaps.
Reichard et al. (2019) tracked receptive vocabulary through age eight and saw steady but slower growth in ASD. The Taiwanese study starts earlier and adds the predictive power of trajectory classes, giving clinicians an earlier heads-up.
Why it matters
You can plot a toddler’s receptive and expressive scores across just a few months and place the child in a likely path. If both lines stay flat and low, prioritize comprehensive ASD assessment and start ASD-specific intervention. If the lines climb, keep monitoring but consider broader language services. Trajectory thinking turns scattered scores into a clear action plan.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Language development is critical to various outcomes in young children with developmental disabilities (DD), including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and non-ASD delays. However, language development trajectories in young children with DD in non-Western populations remain unclear. AIMS: To investigate the language development trajectories of young children with DD in Taiwan. We investigated the relationship between trajectory class assignment and diagnostic outcomes (ASD or non-ASD delays) at 3 years after enrollment in the study and the differences in early abilities among children in different trajectory classes. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: The participants were 101 young children with DD (mean age: 21.88 months; follow-up: 1.5 and 3 years after enrollment). Growth mixture modeling analyses were conducted to receptive language developmental quotients (RLDQ) and expressive language developmental quotients (ELDQ) on the basis of the Mullen Scales of Early Learning. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Three RLDQ trajectories were identified, namely age expected, delayed catch-up, and delayed, and two ELDQ trajectories were identified, namely delayed improve and delayed. Trajectory class assignment was related to diagnostic outcomes. Children who demonstrated more proficient skills at the early time point, demonstrated improved language outcomes 3 years later. However, adaptive functioning did not differ between the two ELDQ trajectory classes. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Language development in young children with DD in Taiwan is heterogeneous. Delayed receptive and expressive language development trajectories relate to later ASD diagnoses.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2023 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2023.104470