Language outcome of Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Reah, Chawarska, Cicchetti and Volkmar published in 2008 a study on Language outcomes of toddlers with ASD, in a Two Year Follow-up that I just came over as I was searching for something else. But that’s usually how I find articles to read. The article is published in Research Autism.
The study reevaluated thirty-seven children who received a clinical diagnoses of ASD at age 15-25 months approximately two years later (at least one year later) to assess their progress in language and several other areas. The study reveals several interesting results, as the clinical diagnosis given at early age seems to hold to years later. This of course gives useful information regarding earlier diagnosis and early intervention helping children with ASD.
The study also shows that the difference in verbal and non-verbal scores where significant at the first assessment, but not on the second visit, something that raise several questions, but could be seen as a positive result.
The most interesting in this study could have been how different services influences the results. The study collected data on what services the children and families received but there are not done analysis of the effect of different services and interventions had on these results. The lack of such analysis makes the results less valid from my point of view, as it´s reasonably to assume that different services has different impact on progress in different areas, and such an analysis could have giver useful information on effectiveness of different interventions.
I really hope that further studies in this area could incorporate such analysis, and enriching the knowledge both on early identification and early intervention for children with ASD.
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