Brain Responses to Words in 2-Year-Olds with Autism Predict Developmental Outcomes at Age 6

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability that affects social behavior and language acquisition. ASD exhibits great variability in outcomes, with some individuals remaining nonverbal and others exhibiting average or above average function. Cognitive ability contributes to heterogeneity in autism and serves as a modest predictor of later function. We show that a brain measure (event-related potentials, ERPs) of word processing in children with ASD, assessed at the age of 2 years (N = 24), is a broad and robust predictor of receptive language, cognitive ability, and adaptive behavior at ages 4 and 6 years, regardless of the form of intensive clinical treatment during the intervening years. The predictive strength of this brain measure increases over time, and exceeds the predictive strength of a measure of cognitive ability, used here for comparison. These findings have theoretical implications and may eventually lead to neural measures that allow early prediction of developmental outcomes as well as more individually tailored clinical interventions, with the potential for greater effectiveness in treating children with ASD

The Collective Experience of Teaching, Learning, and Doing Action Research: A Student - Professor Dialogue

This panel presents the experiences of a professor and students in a one semester, doctoral action research course. The course required both the completion of individual action research projects by each student, and participation in an action research project led by the professor. As we explored the concept of action research, we used Appreciative Inquiry to conduct action research on our own doctoral program, the purpose of which was to demonstrate action research as the students conducted their individual studies in their professional settings and to define and address real concerns about the program in which they are enrolled. Ours was a group of six doctoral students, only one of whom had formal experience with qualitative research. As often occurs in qualitative courses, students initially interpreted the experience through the quantitative lens with which they were familiar. The experiences while teaching, learning, and doing action research in the course included discomfort, resistance, fear, struggle, worry, relief, and success. The focus of the panel is not the findings of the individual or group projects, but a dialogue about the collective experience of the process. Our panel will open as a group Pecha Kucha (http://www.pechakucha.org/) and continue as a conversation

Early speech perception and later language development: Implications for the “critical period.” Language Learning and Development

In this article, we present a summary of recent research linking speech perception in infancy to later language development, as well as a new empirical study examining that linkage. Infant phonetic discrimination is initially language universal, but a decline in phonetic discrimination occurs for nonnative phonemes by the end of the 1st year. Exploiting this transition in phonetic perception between 6 and 12 months of age, we tested the hypothesis that the decline in nonnative phonetic discrimination is associated with native-language phonetic learning. Using a standard behavioral measure of speech discrimination in infants at 7.5 months and measures of their language abilities at 14, 18, 24, and 30 months, we show (a) a negative correlation between infants’ early native and nonnative phonetic discrimination skills and (b) that nativeand nonnative-phonetic discrimination skills at 7.5 months differentially predict future language ability. Better native-language discrimination at 7.5 months predicts accelerated later language abilities, whereas better nonnative-language discrimination at 7.5 months predicts reduced later language abilities. The discussion focuses on (a) the theoretical connection between speech perception and language developmen

Brain Responses to Words in 2-Year-Olds with Autism Predict Developmental Outcomes at Age 6

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability that affects social behavior and language acquisition. ASD exhibits great variability in outcomes, with some individuals remaining nonverbal and others exhibiting average or above average function. Cognitive ability contributes to heterogeneity in autism and serves as a modest predictor of later function. We show that a brain measure (event-related potentials, ERPs) of word processing in children with ASD, assessed at the age of 2 years (N = 24), is a broad and robust predictor of receptive language, cognitive ability, and adaptive behavior at ages 4 and 6 years, regardless of the form of intensive clinical treatment during the intervening years. The predictive strength of this brain measure increases over time, and exceeds the predictive strength of a measure of cognitive ability, used here for comparison. These findings have theoretical implications and may eventually lead to neural measures that allow early prediction of developmental outcomes as well as more individually tailored clinical interventions, with the potential fo

Intercorrelations among outcome measures.

*<p>p<.05,</p>**<p>p<.01,</p>***<p>p<.001.</p

Standardized measures of receptive language, cognitive ability, and adaptive behavior.

<p>Standardized measures of receptive language, cognitive ability, and adaptive behavior.</p

Age and standardized behavioral measures at Time 1, Time 2, and Time 3.

*<p>N = 18 for Receptive Language, N = 19 for Cognitive Ability, N = 15 for Adaptive Function.</p