engleski

What the features of prelinguistic communication can tell us about developmental trajectories

Prelinguistic communication is often implicated as contributing factor in later appearing language, learning or social problems, but there is little research of features of prelinguistic communication as predictor of developmental outcome. The aim of this work is to analyze later developmental outcome in children with different profiles of prelinguistic communication. The participants in the study were children who went through developmental assessment within clinical unit of Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences due to parent’s concern about their early language development. Their later developmental outcome was checked through control assessment or by telephone survey. Different scales of mental development were administered (Bayley Scales of Infant Development). Communication and language abilities (Mc Arthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories, Reynell Developmental Language Scales, Early Social Communication Scales, and Pragmatic Profile of Everyday Communication Skills) and some measures of social cognition (joint attention) were also assessed. Results implicate that already in the age of two, based on communication features and previous development of the child, at least four developmental trajectories can be distinguished: (a) typical development, (b) late talkers, (c) slower mental and language development (future learning difficulties), (d) participants on the autistic spectrum disorder. Results indicate that the emergence of first words is not so predictive for later outcome as the ratio between the declarative and imperative communicative purposes and measures of social cognition.

pattern of communication; language understanding; gestures; ASD; predictors

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