ArticleAutism : the international journal of research and practice2021
The role of early social motivation in explaining variability in functional language in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder.
Article in Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- Examining the Transition from Single Words to Phrase Speech in Children with ASD: A Systematic Review.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2024Pooled it
- Vocal and social impairments in songbirds embryonically exposed to an autism risk factor.iScience · 2026Article
- Early manifestations of unexpected bilingualism in minimally verbal autism.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Article
- Advancing scientific understanding of the drive to socially engage: from broad constructs to transdiagnostic 'building blocks'.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- Characterizing Transdiagnostic Processes Underlying the Drive to Socially Engage: A Multimeasurement Factor Analytic Investigation.JAACAP open · 2025Article
- Parsing the heterogeneity of social motivation in autism.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2025Article
- Gut microbiota maturation and early behavioral and cognitive development.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Enhanced pitch discrimination in autistic children with unexpected bilingualism.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2024Article
- Brief report: bidirectional association of core autism features and cognitive abilities in early childhood.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2024Article
- Utility of the Language Use Inventory in Young Children at Elevated Likelihood of Autism.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR · 2024Article
- People with Autism Spectrum Disorder Could Interact More Easily with a Robot than with a Human: Reasons and Limits.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Social motivation in infancy is associated with familial recurrence of ASD.Development and psychopathology · 2024Article
- Social motivation by self- and caregiver-report: Reporter concordance and social correlates among autistic and neurotypical youth.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2024Article
- On being earnest: a mentor and her mentee's perspective.Pediatric research · 2023Article
- Quantifying latent social motivation and its associations with joint attention and language in infants at high and low likelihood for autism spectrum disorder.Developmental science · 2023Article
- Say that again: Quantifying patterns of production for children with autism using recurrence analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Theories of Autism and Autism Treatment from the DSM III Through the Present and Beyond: Impact on Research and Practice.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2021Review
- Speech Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Integrative Review of Auditory Neurophysiology Findings.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR · 2021Review
- Parentese Elicits Infant Speech-Like Vocalizations in Typically Developing and Autistic Infants.Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant StudiesArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
lay abstractAbout one-third of children with autism spectrum disorder never develop the language that they need in different day-to-day situations. Identifying potential factors that can predict later language development is crucial to understanding why some children with autism spectrum disorder successfully develop language while others do not. This study sought to investigate one of the understudied predictors of language development, social motivation, and to test theories for why this association may occur. Testing the theories requires that we measure children's ability to deliberately and directly communicate with others (i.e. intentional communication) and children's language understanding between the measures of social motivation and later expressive language. We tested 87 children with autism spectrum disorder, aged 14-31 months, at four times over 24 months. We found that children with relatively stronger social motivation had relatively better language use 2 years later. This positive link was partly due to a child's ability to produce intentional communication and to understand language. Although we did not measure parents' talking to their children, a theory that inspired this study suggests that children who use frequent intentional communication probably motivate others to talk with them frequently, which facilitates children's language understanding which leads to the development of expressive language. This theory, if confirmed to be true, can provide guidance for parents who want to help their children learn to talk. Parents could look for intentional communication from their children and respond by talking to their children. Effective intervention on both parent and child targets will likely enhance treatment efficacy. Future work is needed to test these ideas.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.