Abstract
Background: Motor milestones such as the onset of walking are important developmental markers, not only for later motor skills but also for more widespread social‐cognitive development. The aim of the current study was to test whether gross motor abilities, specifically the onset of walking, predicted the subsequent rate of language development in a large cohort of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Methods: We ran growth curve models for expressive and receptive language measured at 2, 3, 5 and 9 years in 209 autistic children. Measures of gross motor, visual reception and autism symptoms were collected at the 2 year visit. In Model 1, walking onset was included as a predictor of the slope of language development. Model 2 included a measure of non‐verbal IQ and autism symptom severity as covariates. The final model, Model 3, additionally covaried for gross motor ability. Results: In the first model, parent‐reported age of walking onset significantly predicted the subsequent rate of language development although the relationship became non‐significant when gross motor skill, non‐verbal ability and autism severity scores were included (Models 2 & 3). Gross motor score, however, did remain a significant predictor of both expressive and receptive language development. Conclusions: Taken together, the model results provide some evidence that early motor abilities in young children with ASD can have longitudinal cross‐domain influences, potentially contributing, in part, to the linguistic difficulties that characterise ASD. Autism Res 2016, 9: 993–1001. © 2015 The Authors Autism Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Society for Autism Research
Highlights
In development, gross motor skills such as rolling over, crawling and walking, play an important role in enabling infants to interact with the world
When we ran a growth curve models (GCMs) which included the ADI-R score (ß 5 20.08, S.E. 5 0.05, P 5 0.11) and the visual reception (VR) T-score with imputed values to account for floor effects (ß 5 0.15, S.E. 5 0.02, P < 0.001), the relationship between walking onset and rate of receptive language development became nonsignificant (ß 5 20.07, S.E. 5 0.04, P 5 0.11), the coefficient was in the same direction
Model 2: The effect of walking on language became nonsignificant when accounting for nonverbal ability and autism symptoms (RL ß 5 20.07, S.E. 5 0.05, P 5 0.17; Expressive Language (EL) ß 5 20.08, S.E. 5 0.06, P 5 0.14)
Summary
Gross motor skills such as rolling over, crawling and walking, play an important role in enabling infants to interact with the world. Using only parent-report questionnaires may be problematic as there is shared variance arising from the fact that the same person reports both motor and language ability This could explain why Alcock and Krawczyk [2010] did not replicate their findings when using a standardised developmental assessment. Motor milestones such as the onset of walking are important developmental markers, for later motor skills and for more widespread social-cognitive development. Results: In the first model, parent-reported age of walking onset significantly predicted the subsequent rate of language development the relationship became non-significant when gross motor skill, non-verbal ability and autism severity scores were included (Models 2 & 3). VC 2015 The Authors Autism Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Society for Autism Research
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