Face-to-face contact during infancy: How the development of gaze to faces feeds into infants' vocabulary outcomes

Infants acquire their first words through interactions with social partners. In the first year of life, infants receive a high frequency of visual and auditory input from faces, making faces a potential strong social cue in facilitating word-to-world mappings. In this position paper, we review how and when infant gaze to faces is likely to support their subsequent vocabulary outcomes. We assess the relevance of infant gaze to faces selectively, in three domains: infant gaze to different features within a face (that is, eyes and mouth); then to faces (compared to objects); and finally to more socially relevant types of faces. We argue that infant gaze to faces could scaffold vocabulary construction, but its relevance may be impacted by the developmental level of the infant and the type of task with which they are presented. Gaze to faces proves relevant to vocabulary, as gazes to eyes could inform about the communicative nature of the situation or about the labeled object, while gazes to the mouth could improve word processing, all of which are key cues to highlighting word-to-world pairings. We also discover gaps in the literature regarding how infants' gazes to faces (versus objects) or to different types of faces relate to vocabulary outcomes. An important direction for future research will be to fill these gaps to better understand the social factors that influence infant vocabulary outcomes

The Vocabulary of Infants with an Elevated Likelihood and Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis of Infant Language Studies Using the CDI and MSEL

Diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are typically accompanied by atypical language development, which can be noticeable even before diagnosis. The siblings of children diagnosed with ASD are at elevated likelihood for ASD diagnosis and have been shown to have higher prevalence rates than the general population. In this paper, we systematically reviewed studies looking at the vocabulary size and development of infants with autism. One inclusion criterion was that infants were grouped either pre‐diagnostically as elevated or typical likelihood or post‐diagnostically as ASD or without ASD. This review focused on studies that tested infants up to 24 months of age and that assessed vocabulary either via the parent‐completed MacArthur–Bates Communicative Developmental Inventory (CDI) or the clinician‐administered Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL). Our systematic search yielded 76 studies. A meta‐analysis was performed on these studies that compared the vocabulary scores of EL and TL infants pre‐diagnostically and the scores of ASD and non‐ASD infants post‐diagnostically. Both pre‐ and post‐diagnostically, it was found that the EL and ASD infants had smaller vocabularies than their TL and non‐ASD peers, respectively. The effect sizes across studies were heterogenous, prompting additional moderator analyses of age and sub‐group analyses of the language measure used (CDI or MSEL) as potential moderators of the effect size. Age was found to be a moderator both in the pre‐ and post‐diagnostical groups, however, language measure was not a moderator in either diagnostic group. Interpretations and future research directions are discussed based on these findings

The Vocabulary of Infants with an Elevated Likelihood and Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis of Infant Language Studies Using the CDI and MSEL

Diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are typically accompanied by atypical language development, which can be noticeable even before diagnosis. The siblings of children diagnosed with ASD are at elevated likelihood for ASD diagnosis and have been shown to have higher prevalence rates than the general population. In this paper, we systematically reviewed studies looking at the vocabulary size and development of infants with autism. One inclusion criterion was that infants were grouped either pre‐diagnostically as elevated or typical likelihood or post‐diagnostically as ASD or without ASD. This review focused on studies that tested infants up to 24 months of age and that assessed vocabulary either via the parent‐completed MacArthur–Bates Communicative Developmental Inventory (CDI) or the clinician‐administered Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL). Our systematic search yielded 76 studies. A meta‐analysis was performed on these studies that compared the vocabulary scores of EL and TL infants pre‐diagnostically and the scores of ASD and non‐ASD infants post‐diagnostically. Both pre‐ and post‐diagnostically, it was found that the EL and ASD infants had smaller vocabularies than their TL and non‐ASD peers, respectively. The effect sizes across studies were heterogenous, prompting additional moderator analyses of age and sub‐group analyses of the language measure used (CDI or MSEL) as potential moderators of the effect size. Age was found to be a moderator both in the pre‐ and post‐diagnostical groups, however, language measure was not a moderator in either diagnostic group. Interpretations and future research directions are discussed based on these findings

Social and language development: How infants’ face sensitivity and item exploration during the Face pop-out task relates to their vocabulary outcomes

The aim of this study is to assess whether infants’ sensitivity to faces and their visual exploration of items at 5 months of age predicts their vocabulary scores at 3 years of age. We will additionally assess whether the age of the child (both during the Face pop-out in R0_5months and during the Peabody language task in R3) has a moderating effect on the strength and direction of relationship that is observed between the Face pop-out and the Peabody Vocabulary task

Face-to-face contact during infancy: How the development of gaze to faces feeds into infants' vocabulary outcomes

Infants acquire their first words through interactions with social partners. In the first year of life, infants receive a high frequency of visual and auditory input from faces, making faces a potential strong social cue in facilitating word-to-world mappings. In this position paper, we review how and when infant gaze to faces is likely to support their subsequent vocabulary outcomes. We assess the relevance of infant gaze to faces selectively, in three domains: infant gaze to different features within a face (that is, eyes and mouth); then to faces (compared to objects); and finally to more socially relevant types of faces. We argue that infant gaze to faces could scaffold vocabulary construction, but its relevance may be impacted by the developmental level of the infant and the type of task with which they are presented. Gaze to faces proves relevant to vocabulary, as gazes to eyes could inform about the communicative nature of the situation or about the labeled object, while gazes to the mouth could improve word processing, all of which are key cues to highlighting word-to-world pairings. We also discover gaps in the literature regarding how infants' gazes to faces (versus objects) or to different types of faces relate to vocabulary outcomes. An important direction for future research will be to fill these gaps to better understand the social factors that influence infant vocabulary outcomes

The Vocabulary of Infants with an Elevated Likelihood and Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis of Infant Language Studies Using the CDI and MSEL

Diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are typically accompanied by atypical language development, which can be noticeable even before diagnosis. The siblings of children diagnosed with ASD are at elevated likelihood for ASD diagnosis and have been shown to have higher prevalence rates than the general population. In this paper, we systematically reviewed studies looking at the vocabulary size and development of infants with autism. One inclusion criterion was that infants were grouped either pre‐diagnostically as elevated or typical likelihood or post‐diagnostically as ASD or without ASD. This review focused on studies that tested infants up to 24 months of age and that assessed vocabulary either via the parent‐completed MacArthur–Bates Communicative Developmental Inventory (CDI) or the clinician‐administered Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL). Our systematic search yielded 76 studies. A meta‐analysis was performed on these studies that compared the vocabulary scores of EL and TL infants pre‐diagnostically and the scores of ASD and non‐ASD infants post‐diagnostically. Both pre‐ and post‐diagnostically, it was found that the EL and ASD infants had smaller vocabularies than their TL and non‐ASD peers, respectively. The effect sizes across studies were heterogenous, prompting additional moderator analyses of age and sub‐group analyses of the language measure used (CDI or MSEL) as potential moderators of the effect size. Age was found to be a moderator both in the pre‐ and post‐diagnostical groups, however, language measure was not a moderator in either diagnostic group. Interpretations and future research directions are discussed based on these findings

Assessing language in infants with an elevated likelihood or diagnosis of autism: The association between parent- versus researcher-administered measures

Purpose: Infants later diagnosed with autism typically have smaller vocabularies than their peers. The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Developmental Inventory (CDI) and the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) are key tools for assessing infants' language abilities, but it remains unclear what the association is between these measures in infancy, and whether associations vary with group status (elevated likelihood of autism or not; confirmed diagnosis of autism or not). Methods: We analyzed data from 720 14-month-old infants in the Eurosibs consortium, looking at whether the correlation between CDI and MSEL was influenced by group status (elevated likelihood of autism or not; confirmed diagnosis or not) and native language. We also compared vocabulary sizes between the two likelihood groups, and then between the two diagnostic groups. Results: Moderate correlations between CDI and MSEL scores were found across most groups, rs = [.34, .58]. Infants with an elevated likelihood of autism showed a slightly higher correlation in expressive language scores than typically developing children. Diagnosed children had smaller vocabularies than their non-diagnosed counterparts on both CDI and MSEL. The elevated likelihood group had smaller vocabularies on MSEL but not on CDI when compared to typical likelihood peers. Conclusion: The moderate associations between CDI and MSEL suggest they may measure different aspects of language in infancy, as these associations are weaker than previously reported for older children. Vocabulary size differences were more pronounced in diagnostic groups than in likelihood groups. Further research is needed to understand why these associations are lower in infants. Keywords: Language assessment, Communicative Developmental Inventory, Mullen Scales of Early Learning, Autism, Infant