I chose to read this article, because I was curious to learn about how the researchers found the verbal language growth over the course of a 9 year period in three different groups of child (autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified and no disability). The researchers noted that past research studies and experience has shown that it is vital that children display and respond to joint-attention in social situations in order to develop social and verbal abilities. Anderson et al. (2007) states, "Of seven longitudinal studies, all found a positive association between one or more aspects of joint attention (alternating gaze, pointing, showing) and subsequent verbal skills regardless of the measures used (e.g., Charman et al., 2003; Mundy, Sigman, & Kasari, 1990; Sigman & McGovern, 2005)." The study goes further to explain that children with autism versus children with PDD-NOS were more likely to have verbal language in the future. The basis of the research focused on the language predictors displayed in two year old children and what the same children verbal language outcomes were at age 9.
The results of the study found that the language outcomes of the children with autism had a greater variance then that of the other two groups (PDD-NOS and no disability). The study also found that when the children with autism had early interventions as well as caregiver support and practice of interventions when treatment professionals were not around had a higher language outcome by age 9. Learning this information solidifies my belief in the effectiveness of early intervention practices and the basis of my research study.
References:
Anderson,
D. K., Lord, C., Risi, S., DiLavore, P. S., Shulman, C., Thurm, A., . . .
Pickles, A. (2007). Patterns of growth in verbal abilities among children with
autism spectrum disorder. Journal of
Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 75(4), 594-604.
doi:10.1037/0022-006X.75.4.594
