TY - JOUR
T1 - Atypical communication characteristics among clinic-referred youth with and without autism spectrum disorder
T2 - Stability and associations with clinical correlates
AU - Kang, Erin
AU - Lerner, Matthew D.
AU - Gadow, Kenneth D.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements. This study was supported, in part, by the Matt and Debra Cody Center for Autism and Developmental Disorders. The funder had no role in study design; the data collection, analysis, and interpretation; manuscript writing; and the decision to submit the article for publication. The authors wish to thank Dr. John Pomeroy, M.D., for directing the ASD diagnoses and Carla DeVincent, Ph.D., for coordinating data collection. Kenneth D. Gadow is shareholder in Checkmate Plus, publisher of the Child and Adolescent Symptom Inventory. Erin Kang and Matthew D. Lerner report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press..
PY - 2020/10/1
Y1 - 2020/10/1
N2 - Atypical communication characteristics (ACCs), such as speech delay, odd pitch, and pragmatic difficulties, are common features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as are the symptoms of a wide range of psychiatric disorders. Using a simple retrospective method, this study aimed to better understand the relation and stability of ACCs with a broad range of psychiatric symptoms among large, well-characterized samples of clinic-referred children and adolescents with and without ASD. Youth with ASD had higher rates and a more variable pattern of developmental change in ACCs than the non-ASD diagnostic group. Latent class analysis yielded three ACC stability subgroups within ASD: Stable ACCs, Mostly Current-Only ACCs, and Little Professors. Subgroups exhibited differences in severity of ASD symptomatology, co-occurring psychiatric symptoms, and other correlates. Our findings provide support for the clinical utility of characterizing caregiver-perceived changes in ACCs in identifying children at risk for co-occurring psychopathology and other clinically relevant variables.
AB - Atypical communication characteristics (ACCs), such as speech delay, odd pitch, and pragmatic difficulties, are common features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as are the symptoms of a wide range of psychiatric disorders. Using a simple retrospective method, this study aimed to better understand the relation and stability of ACCs with a broad range of psychiatric symptoms among large, well-characterized samples of clinic-referred children and adolescents with and without ASD. Youth with ASD had higher rates and a more variable pattern of developmental change in ACCs than the non-ASD diagnostic group. Latent class analysis yielded three ACC stability subgroups within ASD: Stable ACCs, Mostly Current-Only ACCs, and Little Professors. Subgroups exhibited differences in severity of ASD symptomatology, co-occurring psychiatric symptoms, and other correlates. Our findings provide support for the clinical utility of characterizing caregiver-perceived changes in ACCs in identifying children at risk for co-occurring psychopathology and other clinically relevant variables.
KW - atypical communication characteristics (ACC)
KW - autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
KW - comorbidity
KW - latent class analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092228526&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S095457942000070X
DO - 10.1017/S095457942000070X
M3 - Article
C2 - 32938518
AN - SCOPUS:85092228526
SN - 0954-5794
VL - 32
SP - 1240
EP - 1253
JO - Development and Psychopathology
JF - Development and Psychopathology
IS - 4
ER -