Discernment of possible sex-based variations in presentations of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms is limited by smaller female samples with ASD and confounds with ASD ascertainment. A large national cohort of individuals with autism, SPARK, allowed parent report data to be leveraged to examine whether intrinsic child characteristics and…

The early elementary school years are widely understood to be critical to a child developing a strong foundation for future academic success. Children arrive at kindergarten from diverse settings and experiences, and not all of them are "kindergarten ready." Kindergarten readiness refers to the skills and abilities needed to succeed in…

The sharing of American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) cultures and lifeways provides opportunities for helping young children form deep connections to their community, which, in turn, aids in the development of their early language and literacy skills. This issue brief--based on interviews with eight Tribal Maternal, Infant, Early Childhood Home…

Language development has long been associated with motor development, particularly manual gesture. We examined a variety of motor abilities--manual gesture including symbolic, meaningless and sequential memory, oral motor control, gross and fine motor control--in 129 children aged 21 months. Language abilities were assessed and cognitive and…

In this study we examined early motor, vocal, and communicative development in a group of younger siblings of children diagnosed with autism (Infant Siblings). Infant Siblings and no-risk comparison later-born infants were videotaped at home with a primary caregiver each month from 5 to 14 months, with follow-up at 18 months. As a group, Infant…

In order to investigate the teachers and parents' perceptions of school readiness, 218 parents and 370 teachers were surveyed. Based on the areas of "physical well-being and motor development", "social and emotional development", "approaches to learning", "language use", "cognition and general…

Motor control has long been associated with language skill, in deficits, both acquired and developmental, and in typical development. Most evidence comes from limb praxis however; the link between oral motor control and speech and language has been neglected, despite the fact that most language users talk with their mouths. Oral motor control is…

An intensive early intervention program was evaluated by assessing gains made by 44 special needs children (age 2) in cognition, gross motor, fine motor, receptive language, and expressive language domains. Comparison of actual to predicted posttest scores did not reveal significant gains in any domains. In cognition, gross motor, and fine motor…