Language skills of toddlers at ELA (Artis et al., 2025)
Purpose: The purposes of this article were (a) to compare the developmental skills of toddlers whose scores on the First Years Inventory–Lite (FYI-Lite), an early screening tool, indicated an elevated likelihood of a later diagnosis of autism (ELA) to the developmental skills of toddlers at a lower likelihood of a later diagnosis of autism (LLA) and (b) to examine how autism characteristics are correlated with communication measures in toddlers at an ELA.
Method: We assessed the language, social communication (SC) skills, and characteristics of autism demonstrated by 45 toddlers at an ELA and 37 toddlers at an LLA between the ages of 11 and 18 months and compared group scores on these measures. We also examined the correlations between the characteristics of autism and language measures within the ELA group.
Results: Toddlers at an ELA demonstrated lower scores on measures of global expressive and receptive language, receptive vocabulary, gestures, and response to joint attention bids as well as SC characteristics of autism when compared to those demonstrated by toddlers at an LLA. There were no significant differences between groups on expressive vocabulary, language profiles (i.e., the relationship between receptive and expressive scores), or restrictive and repetitive behaviors. Within the ELA group, the SC characteristics of autism were significantly associated with their global receptive and expressive language skills.
Conclusions: On the basis of the FYI-Lite screening tool, toddlers at an ELA are demonstrating delays in language and SC skills when compared to toddlers identified with an LLA. For toddlers at an ELA, the SC characteristics of autism are significantly associated with early language skills.
Supplemental Material S1. Descriptive statistics and supplemental figures.
Artis, J., Nowell, S. W., Dubay, M., Grzadzinski, R., Thompson, K., Choi, E., Baranek, G. T. & Watson, L. R. (2025). Early language, social communication, and autism characteristics of young toddlers at elevated likelihood for autism identified by the First Years Inventory–Lite. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 34(1), 347–363. https://doi.org/10.1044/2024_AJSLP-24-00149
