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Brief Report: Do the Nature of Communication Impairments in Autism Spectrum Disorders Relate to the Broader Autism Phenotype in Parents?

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Abstract

Extensive empirical evidence indicates that the lesser variant of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) involves a communication impairment that is similar to, but milder than, the deficit in clinical ASD. This research explored the relationship between the broader autism phenotype (BAP) among parents, an index of genetic liability for ASD, and proband communication difficulties. ASD probands with at least one BAP parent (identified using the Autism Spectrum Quotient) had greater structural and pragmatic language difficulties (assessed using the Children’s Communication Checklist-2) than ASD probands with no BAP parent. This finding provides support for the position that genetic liability for ASD is associated with increased communication difficulties across structural and pragmatic domains.

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Notes

  1. We re-ran the univariate ANOVAs without the children who did not meet ADOS-G cut-offs for ASD. While the p-values were slightly higher than for the original analysis, the overall pattern of results was unchanged. Significant effects were retained across the Coherence, Inappropriate Initiation, Stereotyped Language and Use of Context subscales as well as for the Global Communication Composite. There was also a trend towards significance for the Social subscale (p = .062)

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Acknowledgments

Lauren Taylor is supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award, and Andrew Whitehouse by a NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (#1004065).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Neurocognitive Developmental Unit, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, M304, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    Lauren J. Taylor, Murray T. Maybery & Andrew J. O. Whitehouse

  2. Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Centre for Child Health Research, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia

    Lauren J. Taylor, Anna Hunt & Andrew J. O. Whitehouse

  3. State Child Development Centre, Child and Adolescent Health Service, Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, Perth, WA, Australia

    John Wray

  4. School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perth, WA, Australia

    David Ravine

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  1. Lauren J. Taylor
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  2. Murray T. Maybery
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  5. Anna Hunt
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  6. Andrew J. O. Whitehouse
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Correspondence to Lauren J. Taylor.

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Taylor, L.J., Maybery, M.T., Wray, J. et al. Brief Report: Do the Nature of Communication Impairments in Autism Spectrum Disorders Relate to the Broader Autism Phenotype in Parents?. J Autism Dev Disord 43, 2984–2989 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1838-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1838-3

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