Objectives: To examine the language and reading abilities of children with autism, children with SLI, and their first-degree relatives.
Methods: Participants were 51 autistic children, 34 children with SLI, their siblings, and their parents. The autism group was divided into two groups: those with and without language impairment (ALI, N=31; ALN, N=20). Participants were tested and compared on a battery of IQ, language, and reading assessments, including the WISC/WAIS, CELF-III, CTOPP, PPVT, WJ-R, and non-word repetition. Relationships to severity of autistic symptoms were also examined.
Results: ALI and SLI probands performed similarly on most measures while ALN probands scored higher. CELF-III and non-word repetition scores in the autism group were not correlated with symptom severity on any of the algorithm domains of the ADI-R or ADOS. SLI family members performed poorly on most measures, and over half scored in the LI range on CELF-III or non-word repetition. Similarly, the percentage of ALI relatives scoring in the LI range on these measures was significantly higher than in ALN relatives, especially in mothers, despite a lack of significance on group comparisons.
Conclusions: These findings suggest considerable overlap in ALI and SLI beyond basic language abilities and that language difficulties in the autism group are not related to autism severity. Also, although as a group relatives of autistic children performed better than those of SLI children, a significant proportion did perform poorly on clinically relevant language assessments.
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See more of: Oral Presentations