The influence of adult speech on the language of children with ASD: An examination of multiple dimensions of responsiveness in two contexts

Adult responsiveness is related to language development both in young typically developing children and in children with ASD, such that parents who use more responsive language with their children have children who develop better language skills. In addition, very young children and children with ASD have an easier time acquiring new object labels when adults follow in to their focus of attention rather than attempting to redirect their attention. One dimension of responsiveness, following in to the child's focus of attention, has been consistently found to promote language learning in children with and without ASD. However, other dimensions of responsiveness, such as degree of demandingness of adult language, have not been examined in detail or have produced inconsistent results. The current studies examined the relationships between two dimensions of adult responsiveness (relationship to the child's focus of attention and degree of demandingness) and child language in children with ASD and typical development. Study 1 used a microanalytic technique to examine conversational turns within a mother-child interaction. This study found that mothers' use of follow-in demanding language was most likely to elicit appropriate expressive language in both children with ASD and children with typical development. For children with ASD, but not children with typical development, mothers' use of orienting cues conferred an additional benefit for expressive language production. Study 2 examined how the same two dimensions of adult language influenced the acquisition of new expressive and receptive vocabulary in children with ASD and typical development during a brief experimental learning task. Children with typical development were easily able to learn receptive labels in all conditions, while children with ASD tended to mis-map words to their own focus of interest during trials in which the adult's focus of attention was discrepant from their own. Children with ASD showed a trend toward correct receptive mapping with the addition of an orienting cue. During expressive trials, both children with ASD and children with typical development were most likely to map successfully during follow-in trials, and least likely to map successfully during discrepant trials. These findings suggest that following a child's focus of interest may confer language learning benefits for both children with ASD and children with typical development during challenging tasks.