Events Calendar

22 Jul
Dissertation Defense-Emily Roemer Britsch
Event Type

Defenses

Target Audience

Faculty, Graduate Students, Postdocs

University Unit
Department of Psychology
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Dissertation Defense-Emily Roemer Britsch

This is a past event.

Early Conversational Skills in the Younger Siblings of Children with Autism

Neurotypical children have increasingly complex conversations in their first three years, beginning to respond in ways that maintain topics and add new information. These skills emerge in the context of dyadic exchanges – parents create opportunities for conversation, and conversations build on children’s language and pragmatic abilities, which are key areas of challenge for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Compared to children with no family history of autism (typical likelihood, TL), the younger siblings of children with ASD are at elevated likelihood (EL) for both ASD and non-ASD language delays. The present study used natural language sampling (i.e., transcribing and classifying parent and child speech) during parent-child toy play in the home to examine child spoken language, conversational skills, and parent contributions to conversations with three-year-old TL (n=16) and EL children with ASD (EL-ASD, n=10), non-ASD language delays (EL-LD, n=21), and typical development (EL-ND, n=37). Consistent with hypotheses, EL-ASD children produced fewer intelligible utterances and both the EL-LD and EL-ASD groups produced shorter utterances than neurotypical peers. When utterances were intelligible, all groups were highly likely to be contingent to the topic of conversation, contrary to expectations. However, EL-ASD children were less likely than all other groups to add new information to the conversation, and the extent to which children added new information was positively associated with utterance length and vocabulary diversity across groups. Parents of EL-ASD children had fewer opportunities to respond contingently to their child’s topic. However, all parents were highly contingent when child speech was intelligible, and complexity of parent speech varied with child spoken language ability and conversational skills. Parents produced similar proportions of questions, and regardless of outcome group, wh-questions (i.e., who, what, when, where, why, how questions) elicited child utterances that were longer and more likely to add new information to the conversation than other questions. Finally, coordinated joint engagement and expressive language in toddlerhood were independent predictors of conversational skills. Findings highlight children’s strengths in utilizing speech when interacting with parents and show that wh-questions may be particularly helpful in interventions for children with ASD and non-ASD language delays.

Dial-In Information

Please contact Graduate Administrator, frs38@pitt.edu, for Zoom link. 

Friday, July 22 at 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Sennott Square, Martin Room-4127
210 South Bouquet Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15260

Dissertation Defense-Emily Roemer Britsch

Early Conversational Skills in the Younger Siblings of Children with Autism

Neurotypical children have increasingly complex conversations in their first three years, beginning to respond in ways that maintain topics and add new information. These skills emerge in the context of dyadic exchanges – parents create opportunities for conversation, and conversations build on children’s language and pragmatic abilities, which are key areas of challenge for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Compared to children with no family history of autism (typical likelihood, TL), the younger siblings of children with ASD are at elevated likelihood (EL) for both ASD and non-ASD language delays. The present study used natural language sampling (i.e., transcribing and classifying parent and child speech) during parent-child toy play in the home to examine child spoken language, conversational skills, and parent contributions to conversations with three-year-old TL (n=16) and EL children with ASD (EL-ASD, n=10), non-ASD language delays (EL-LD, n=21), and typical development (EL-ND, n=37). Consistent with hypotheses, EL-ASD children produced fewer intelligible utterances and both the EL-LD and EL-ASD groups produced shorter utterances than neurotypical peers. When utterances were intelligible, all groups were highly likely to be contingent to the topic of conversation, contrary to expectations. However, EL-ASD children were less likely than all other groups to add new information to the conversation, and the extent to which children added new information was positively associated with utterance length and vocabulary diversity across groups. Parents of EL-ASD children had fewer opportunities to respond contingently to their child’s topic. However, all parents were highly contingent when child speech was intelligible, and complexity of parent speech varied with child spoken language ability and conversational skills. Parents produced similar proportions of questions, and regardless of outcome group, wh-questions (i.e., who, what, when, where, why, how questions) elicited child utterances that were longer and more likely to add new information to the conversation than other questions. Finally, coordinated joint engagement and expressive language in toddlerhood were independent predictors of conversational skills. Findings highlight children’s strengths in utilizing speech when interacting with parents and show that wh-questions may be particularly helpful in interventions for children with ASD and non-ASD language delays.

Dial-In Information

Please contact Graduate Administrator, frs38@pitt.edu, for Zoom link. 

Friday, July 22 at 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Sennott Square, Martin Room-4127
210 South Bouquet Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15260

Event Type

Defenses

Target Audience

Faculty, Graduate Students, Postdocs

University Unit
Department of Psychology

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