1. Attention to Social Communication: An infant siblings project
Dr. Suzanne Curtin
University of Calgary
and
Dr. Shirley Leew
Alberta Health Services

2. Big Picture
To examine whether infants at risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder exhibit different preferences for speech and communication.
To examine whether attention biases for speech and social communication in infants at risk follow the same developmental time course as typically developing infants
To ascertain if differences in attention preferences, skills and responses by infants at risk are prospectively associated with language abilities and diagnoses of ASD at 3 years of age.

3. Why early social attention and language development?
We need more information about individual differences in and preferences for attention to predict communication and language outcomes for infants
Later language disabilities may be associated with an underlying attention-to-language deficit or with social communication deficits

4. Conceptual Model

5. Our Babysibs Study will…
Provide information about communicative development in infants who are at increased risk for ASD.
Investigate longitudinally 2 groups of age- and sex-matched infants:
Later-born infant siblings of children already diagnosed with ASD (SIBS-ASD)
Later-born typically developing infants (SIBS-TD)

6. Current Project Tasks: ✔ ✔ ✔ Speech preference: Speech/Non-Speech
Infant-directed speech/adult-directed speech
Processing Rhythm
Social communicative:
NCAST -- caregiver/child interaction
CSBS-DP -- joint attention
Language and cognitive development:
Mullen -- motor and cognitive development
CDI -- language development
ASD:
AOSI -- autism observation scale ✔ ✔ ✔

7. Attending to Speech
The first step is to separate speech from other acoustic signals in the environment by attending to, and preferring, sounds produced by the vocal tract.
Preference for speech
Caregivers modify their speech to draw the infant’s attention to relevant aspects of the speech signal (Infant-directed speech, IDS).
IDS is involved in the regulation of arousal and attention in infants, the learning of emotional intent, and the highlighting of linguistic structure.

8. Attending to Social Communication
Joint Attention:
Capacity of infants/toddlers to coordinate their attention to an object/event with a social partner and to communicate about their focus of attention.
Following the attention direction of their partner.
Spontaneously initiating coordinated or shared attention with a social partner
The beginning of referential and symbolic communication

9. Attention and Autism Spectrum Disorder
Children with ASD do not prefer speech over non-speech, nor do they prefer infant-directed speech.
Joint attention is uniquely linked to language development in children with ASD.
impairment in joint attention was found to be the most sensitive measure of social attention, making it useful for identifying children with ASD.

10. Current Project Methods Current Enrollment: Infants tested: Age
Sibs-ASD: 12
Sibs-TD: 26
Age
SIBS-TD
SIBS-A 4m 26 8 6m 24 8m 7
12m 20 5
18m 6 2

11. Measures Age Speech NCAST (CCX) CSBS (JA) CDI (Lg) Mullen (Cog) AOSI 46 8 12 18

12. Methods: Behavioural & physiological Looking time and heart-rate
Speech/Non-Speech Stimuli

13. Speech Non-Speech

14. Preliminary Results: 12-months

15. CSBS - DP
Present temptations that encourage the child to communicate. We look at frequency counts for JA

16. Autism Observation Scale for Infants (AOSI)
Identify and monitor early signs of autism in infants at heightened risk
18-item direct observational measure for infants 6-18 months
Target behaviors include (not limited to) eye contact, atypical motor/sensory behaviour, social interest, shared affect, attentional disengagement…

17. AOSI

18. Discussion
Exploration of infants’ preferences for speech and their social communicative development (JA) will allow us to collect prospective data and identify early markers for any potential language problems.
Studies of older children diagnosed with ASD have demonstrated that they do not pattern with typically developing children on a number of these measures.
Atypical patterning might be exhibited early in infancy.

19. Acknowledgments Team Members: Community Partners Project Coordinators
Speech Development Lab
Acknowledgments
Team Members:
Danielle Droucker
Tavis Campbell
Margaret Clarke
Peter Faris
Joanne Volden
Athena Vouloumanos
Lonnie Zwaigenbaum
Project Coordinators
Sarah Wills
Melanie Khu
Community Partners
Society for Treatment of Autism
PAART
Renfrew
Coders and Volunteers:
Jen, Nicole, Tracey, Jenna, Becky
Funding: Alberta Centre for Child, Family, and Community Research
Special thanks to the participating families.