Attention to Social Communication: An infant siblings project

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Attention to Social Communication An infant
siblings project

• Dr. Suzanne Curtin
• University of Calgary
• and
• Dr. Shirley Leew
• Alberta Health Services

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Big Picture

• To examine whether infants at risk for Autism
  Spectrum Disorder exhibit different preferences
  for speech and communication.
• To examine whether attention biases for speech
  and social communication in infants at risk
  follow the same developmental time course as
  typically developing infants
• To ascertain if differences in attention
  preferences, skills and responses by infants at
  risk are prospectively associated with language
  abilities and diagnoses of ASD at 3 years of age.

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Why early social attention and language
development?

• We need more information about individual
  differences in and preferences for attention to
  predict communication and language outcomes for
  infants
• Later language disabilities may be associated
  with an underlying attention-to-language deficit
  or with social communication deficits

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Conceptual Model
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Our Babysibs Study will

• Provide information about communicative
  development in infants who are at increased risk
  for ASD.
• Investigate longitudinally 2 groups of age- and
  sex-matched infants
• Later-born infant siblings of children already
  diagnosed with ASD (SIBS-ASD)
• Later-born typically developing infants (SIBS-TD)

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Current Project

• Tasks
• Speech preference
• Speech/Non-Speech
• Infant-directed speech/adult-directed speech
• Processing Rhythm
• Social communicative
• NCAST -- caregiver/child interaction
• CSBS-DP -- joint attention
• Language and cognitive development
• Mullen -- motor and cognitive development
• CDI -- language development
• ASD
• AOSI -- autism observation scale

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Attending to Speech

• The first step is to separate speech from other
  acoustic signals in the environment by attending
  to, and preferring, sounds produced by the vocal
  tract.
• Preference for speech
• Caregivers modify their speech to draw the
  infants attention to relevant aspects of the
  speech signal (Infant-directed speech, IDS).
• IDS is involved in the regulation of arousal and
  attention in infants, the learning of emotional
  intent, and the highlighting of linguistic
  structure.

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Attending to Social Communication

• Joint Attention
• Capacity of infants/toddlers to coordinate their
  attention to an object/event with a social
  partner and to communicate about their focus of
  attention.
• Following the attention direction of their
  partner.
• Spontaneously initiating coordinated or shared
  attention with a social partner
• The beginning of referential and symbolic
  communication

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Attention and Autism Spectrum Disorder

• Children with ASD do not prefer speech over
  non-speech, nor do they prefer infant-directed
  speech.
• Joint attention is uniquely linked to language
  development in children with ASD.
• impairment in joint attention was found to be the
  most sensitive measure of social attention,
  making it useful for identifying children with
  ASD.

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Current Project

• Methods
• Current Enrollment Infants tested
• Sibs-ASD 12
• Sibs-TD 26

Age SIBS-TD SIBS-A
4m 26 8
6m 24 8
8m 24 7
12m 20 5
18m 6 2
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Measures
Age Speech NCAST (CCX) CSBS (JA) CDI (Lg) Mullen (Cog) AOSI
4 X X X
6 X X X
8 X X X X
12 X X X X X
18 X X X X X
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Methods

• Behavioural physiological
• Looking time and heart-rate

Speech/Non-Speech Stimuli
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Speech Non-Speech
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Preliminary Results 12-months
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CSBS - DP
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Autism Observation Scale for Infants (AOSI)

• Identify and monitor early signs of autism in
  infants at heightened risk
• 18-item direct observational measure for infants
  6-18 months
• Target behaviors include (not limited to) eye
  contact, atypical motor/sensory behaviour, social
  interest, shared affect, attentional
  disengagement

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AOSI
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Discussion

• Exploration of infants preferences for speech
  and their social communicative development (JA)
  will allow us to collect prospective data and
  identify early markers for any potential language
  problems.
• Studies of older children diagnosed with ASD have
  demonstrated that they do not pattern with
  typically developing children on a number of
  these measures.
• Atypical patterning might be exhibited early in
  infancy.

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Acknowledgments

• Team Members
• Danielle Droucker
• Tavis Campbell
• Margaret Clarke
• Peter Faris
• Joanne Volden
• Athena Vouloumanos
• Lonnie Zwaigenbaum
• Project Coordinators
• Sarah Wills
• Melanie Khu

• Community Partners
• Society for Treatment of Autism
• PAART
• Renfrew
• Coders and Volunteers
• Jen, Nicole, Tracey, Jenna, Becky
• Funding Alberta Centre for Child, Family, and
  Community Research
• Special thanks to the participating families.

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