Caregiver object labels within supported and coordinated joint engagement during interaction with toddlers at elevated and typical likelihood of autism

• Published in: International journal of language & communication disorders 2023-05, Vol.58 (3), p.672-686
• Main Authors: Kushner, Elizabeth H., Britsch, Emily Roemer, Iverson, Jana M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: At Risk Persons; Autism; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Autism Spectrum Disorders; Autistic Disorder; caregiver language input; Caregivers; Child Language; Child, Preschool; Children & youth; Delayed language acquisition; Developmental Disabilities; Eye contact; Humans; joint engagement; Labeling; Language acquisition; Language Development; Language Skills; Mean length of utterance; Naming; Native language acquisition; Nonverbal Communication; object labelling; Parent Child Relationship; Parent-child relations; Parents & parenting; Receptive language; Speech; Toddlers; Vocabulary Development; Vocabulary learning
• ISSN: 1368-2822; 1460-6984
• DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12809

Background Early in development, caregivers’ object labelling contributes to children's word learning. Language development is a bi‐directional process, and differences in joint engagement (JE) and language among children with developmental disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may provide caregivers varying contexts and opportunities to provide object labels. However, potential variation in caregivers’ production of object labels and its relation to language development remain relatively unexplored among toddlers with ASD. Aims This study characterized the structural and functional features of object labels produced by parents of children with typical (TL) or elevated likelihood (EL) of ASD during naturalistic toy play. We examined features of object labels within two JE contexts, supported and coordinated JE, which are differentiated by a child's use of eye contact, as well as their relations with concurrent and future child language skills. Methods & Procedures The present study included 55 (TL = 12, EL = 43) children who completed a naturalistic parent–child interaction in the home at 18 months of age. Children's expressive and receptive language was assessed at 18, 24 and 36 months. At 36 months, EL children were assessed for ASD and classified as either EL‐No Diagnosis, EL‐Language Delay or EL‐ASD. Videos of interactions were divided into discrete engagement states, including supported and coordinated JE. All parent speech was transcribed and coded to capture structural (types, tokens, mean length of utterance (MLU), sentence position) and functional (follow‐in comments, directives, lead‐in labels) features of object labels as well as parent prompts for the child to produce a label. Outcomes & Results Parents of toddlers across outcome groups labelled objects at similar rates within each engagement state. However, parents of EL‐ASD children provided the lowest rates of prompts for labels in supported JE and the highest rate of labels as the final word of an utterance (sentence‐final position) in coordinated JE. Additionally, parent prompts in supported JE were related to concurrent child expressive language. Labels in sentence‐final position were positively related to later language outcome when delivered in supported JE but were associated with poorer language outcomes when delivered in coordinated JE. Conclusions & Implications Subtle differences in parent object labels across outcome groups demonstrate the role that child language an