Purpose: The aims of this study were (a) to evaluate the convergent validity of the Language Use Inventory (LUI) with measures of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms, language, and social skills and (b) to assess discriminant validity of the LUI with measures of nonlanguage skills, including daily living skills and motor development. Method:…

Purpose: Social media sites provide autistic youth a familiar space to interact that is devoid of many of the challenges that accompany face-to-face interactions. As such, it is important to determine whether the linguistic profiles observed during online interactions are consistent with face-to-face interactions. This preliminary study took a…

Purpose: The present study explored the extent to which early prelinguistic communication skills predict expressive language in toddlers with autistic siblings (Sibs-autism), who are known to be at high likelihood for autism and language disorder, and a comparison group of toddlers with non-autistic older siblings (Sibs-NA). Method: Participants…

Purpose: Neurotypical individuals show a robust "global precedence effect (GPE)" when processing hierarchically structured visual information. However, the auditory domain remains understudied. The current research serves to fill the knowledge gap on auditory global-local processing across the broader autism phenotype under the tonal…

Purpose: We investigate the extent to which automated audiovisual metrics extracted during an affect production task show statistically significant differences between a cohort of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing controls. Method: Forty children with ASD and 21 neurotypical controls interacted with a…

Purpose: This study aims to help researchers design observational measurement systems that yield sufficiently stable scores for estimating caregiver talk among caregivers of infant siblings of autistic and non-autistic children. Stable estimates minimize error introduced by facets of the measurement system, such as variability between coders or…

Purpose: Despite the clinical utility of sentence production and sentence repetition to identify language impairment in autism, little is known about the extent to which these tasks are sensitive to potential language variation. One promising method is strategic scoring, which has good clinical utility for identifying language impairment in…

Objectives: The purposes of this study were to compare (a) listening-in-noise (accuracy and effort) and (b) remote microphone (RM) system benefits between autistic and non-autistic youth. Design: Groups of autistic and non-autistic youth that were matched on chronological age and biological sex completed listening-in-noise testing when wearing and…

Purpose: Reduced use of visible articulatory information on a speaker's face has been implicated as a possible contributor to language deficits in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We employ an audiovisual (AV) phonemic restoration paradigm to measure behavioral performance (button press) and event-related potentials (ERPs) of visual speech…

Purpose: Despite group-level improvements in active engagement and related outcomes, significant individual variability in response to early intervention exists. The purpose of this preliminary study was to examine the effects of a group-based Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention (NDBI) on active engagement among a heterogeneous…

Purpose: Assessing social communication and measuring its changes among young autistic children presents significant challenges, particularly when tracking intervention effects within short timeframes. Existing measures, mostly validated in Western contexts, may not be suitable for culturally diverse populations. Addressing this gap, the Social…

Purpose: Developmental language disorder (DLD) and autism sometimes appear as overlapping conditions in behavioral tests. There is much literature on the visual scanning pattern (VSP) of faces in autistic children, but this is scarce regarding those with DLD. The purpose of this study was to compare the VSP of faces in young children with DLD,…

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate challenges in speech-in-noise (SiN) processing faced by school-age children with autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) and their impact on listening effort. Method: Participants, including 23 Mandarin-speaking children with ASCs and 19 age-matched neurotypical (NT) peers, underwent sentence recognition tests in…

Purpose: Gesture delay in autistic infants and toddlers has been widely reported. The developmental trajectory of gesture production during early childhood is understudied. Thus, little is known about the possible changes of gesture production over time. The present study aimed to document the development of gesture production in autistic children…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of speech disfluencies in autistic young adults and controls by using a wide-range disfluency classification of typical disfluencies (TD; i.e., filled pauses, revisions, abandoned utterances, and multisyllable word and phrase repetitions), stuttering-like disfluencies (SLD; i.e., sound…