Infant and toddler oral‐ and manual‐motor skills predict later speech fluency in autism
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Spoken and gestural communication proficiency varies greatly among autistic individuals. Three studies examined the role of oral- and manual-motor skill in predicting autistic children's speech development. METHODS: Study 1 investigated whether infant and toddler oral- and manual-motor skills predict middle childhood and teenage speech fluency; Study 2 verified those early infant and toddler predictions with historical home video; and Study 3 assessed the relation between autistic children's current-day oral-motor skill and their speech fluency. RESULTS: Infant and toddler oral-motor and manual-motor skills inter-correlated significantly, distinguished autistic children (N = 115) from typically developing children (N = 44), and distinguished autistic children whose current-day speech was minimally fluent (N = 33), moderately fluent (N = 39), and highly fluent (N = 39). These results were corroborated by analysis of historical home video (N = 32) and verified with current-day assessment (N = 40). CONCLUSIONS: The prominent associations among early oral- and manual-motor skills and later speech fluency bear implications for understanding communication in autism. For instance, these associations challenge the common assumption (made even in diagnostic criteria) that manual modes of communication are available to autistic individuals - if simply they choose to use them. These associations also highlight a potential confound from manual-motor skills when assessing autistic cognition, receptive language, and 'nonverbal' social communication.
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Deficits in cognitive functioning may be more common in individuals with known genetic abnormalities.
“in individuals with known genetic abnormalities [47,48]”
From DSM-5 and autism spectrum disorders (ASDs): an opportunity for identifying ASD subtypes (2013) · cites this paper as [47]
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- Authors
- Gernsbacher, M. A., Sauer, E. A., Geye, H. M., Schweigert, E. K., & Hill Goldsmith, H.
- Affiliations
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Corresponding author
- Gernsbacher, Morton Ann
- Venue
- Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2007-11-02
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 43-50
- ISSN
- 0021-9630 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-7610
- PMC
- PMC4123528
- OpenAlex
- W1970357924
- Cited by
- 345
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 69 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 3.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH069793)
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (F33DC005365, DC 5365)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Child Nutrition and Feeding Issues
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, speech fluency, oral motor skills, infant motor development, gestural communication, speech development, home video, autism diagnostic criteria
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Autistic Disorder, Child, Child Development, Child, Preschool, Female, Hand, Humans, Infant, Male, Motor Skills, Mouth, Psychomotor Disorders, Speech Disorders, Speech Intelligibility, Case-Control Studies, Matched-Pair Analysis
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