Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jan;25(1):244-257.
doi: 10.1177/1362361320953260. Epub 2020 Sep 12.

The role of early social motivation in explaining variability in functional language in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder

Pumpki L Su  1 , Sally J Rogers  2 , Annette Estes  3 , Paul Yoder  1
Affiliations

The role of early social motivation in explaining variability in functional language in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder

Pumpki L Su et al. Autism. 2021 Jan.

Abstract

About 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.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorders; behavioral measurement; communication and language; development; pre-school children; social cognition and social behavior.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Hypothesized indirect effect of early social motivation on later functional language, thorough: a) intentional communication; b) receptive language; or c) intentional communication and receptive language.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Results for whether intentional communication at Time 2, receptive language at Time 3, or both in serial mediate the association between early social motivation at Time 1 and end-point functional language at Time 4. Displayed coefficients are standardized regression coefficients. *p <.05, ***p <.001.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Bates E (1979). Intentions, conventions, and symbols. In Bates E (Ed.), The Emergence of Symbols. Cognition and Communication in Infancy (pp. 33–68). New York: Academic Press.
    1. Billstedt E, Gillberg C, & Gillberg C (2005). Autism after adolescence: Population-based 13- to 22-year follow-up study of 120 individuals with autism diagnosed in childhood. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 35(3), 351–360. 10.1007/s10803-005-3302-5 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Boucher J (2012). Research review: Structural language in autistic spectrum disorder - Characteristics and causes. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 53(3), 219–233. 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2011.02508.x - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bruner JS (1974). From communication to language-A psychological perspective. Cognition, 3(3), 255–287. https://doi.org/Article
    1. Burnside K, Wright K, & Poulin-Dubois D (2017). Social motivation and implicit theory of mind in children with autism spectrum disorder. Autism Research, 10(11), 1834–1844. 10.1002/aur.1836 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types