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Music has been shown to improve social interaction and attention to verbal stimuli in autism. We report a feasibility randomised controlled trial of an online intervention using music-assisted programmes, compared with best-practice treatment (Social Communication Intervention for Pre-schoolers–Intensive) for language learning in preschool autistic children with minimal verbal language. Minimisation randomisation ensured comparability of groups before intervention. Ninety-one people expressed interest in taking part; 27 met eligibility criteria and were randomised to receive either music-assisted programmes or Social Communication Intervention for Pre-schoolers–Intensive. Children and their parent received two 45-min sessions weekly, over 18 weeks, coached online by a speech and language therapist. A smartphone app was developed to support home-based practice between sessions. Over the study period, 20% of participants completed the intervention and assessments of outcome measures. At 3 months post-intervention follow-up, social responsiveness, understanding of words and phrases and number of words spoken and parent–child interaction improved more in the music-assisted programmes than the Social Communication Intervention for Pre-schoolers–Intensive group. The results demonstrate the feasibility of recruiting this population into a randomised controlled trial and the music-assisted programmes had high perceived acceptability highlighted by parent interviews. A full clinical trial to establish music-assisted programmes' effectiveness in improving early vocabulary learning in autistic children is warranted. Research has shown that autistic individuals often have unusually good musical skills and that combining words and music helps autistic individuals to focus on spoken words. This study tests the idea that music will help with early language learning of preschool autistic children. The results show that when caregivers sing words to autistic children, the children pay more attention to the caregiver than when the words are spoken and that they learn word combinations more easily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Specific language impairment (SLI) is heterogeneous and identifying subgroups within it may help explain the aetiology of the condition. Phonological processing abilities distinguish between children with SLI who do and do not have reading decoding impairments (RDIs). Aims: To probe different levels of phonological processing in children with SLI with and without RDI to investigate the cognitive basis of these differences. Methods & Procedures: A total of 64 children aged 5-17 years were classified using the results of standardized language and single-word reading tests into those with no SLI and no RDI (No SLI/No RDI) (N = 18), no SLI but with RDI (No SLI/RDI) (N = 4, not included in analyses because of the small number), SLI/No RDI (N = 20), and SLI/RDI (N = 22). The groups were compared on a range of tasks engaging different levels of phonological processing (input and output processing and phonological awareness). Outcomes & Results: The SLI/RDI group was distinguished from the SLI/No RDI and No SLI/No RDI groups by more errors in the longer items in non-word repetition and by poorer phonological awareness. Non-word discrimination scores indicated a gradient of performance across groups that was not associated with a qualitatively different pattern of performance. Conclusions & Implications: This is the first study contrasting input and output processes associated with phonological processing. The results suggest that deficits in SLI plus RDI may be associated with impairment in actively maintaining phonological representations for phonological processing, which is not present in those without RDI and which leads to reading decoding difficulties.

Children's spoken word recognition is little understood compared to our knowledge of the adult system. We present here a combined experimental and computational exploration of the development of lexical access. Three accounts of the way children represent lexical form (Full-Specification, Radical Underspecification and Gradual Segmentation) are rejected in favour of one which derives from a connectionist approach. It sheds light on the pattern of results from two experiments investigating the way children, aged 5- to 9-years-old, process regular and irregular variation in the surface form of speech, which suggested, whilst children's lexical representations are functionally underspecified from at least 5-years-oId, they are only beginning to track the viability of regular phonological variation at 9-years-old. The late acquisition of phonological inference is accounted for in a connectionist model in terms of the sparseness of the information relevant to learning this structural relationship in language.

Spoken word recognition, during gating, appears intact in specific language impairment (SLI). This study used gating to investigate the process in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders plus language impairment (ALI). Adolescents with ALI, SLI, and typical language development (TLD), matched on nonverbal IQ listened to gated words that varied in frequency (low/high) and number of phonological onset neighbors (low/high density). Adolescents with ALI required more speech input to initially identify low-frequency words with low competitor density than those with SLI and those with TLD, who did not differ. These differences may be due to less well specified word form representations in ALI.

Children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be vulnerable to social isolation and bullying. We measured the friendship, fighting/bullying and victimization experiences of 10-12-year-old children with an ASD (N = 100) using parent, teacher and child self-report. Parent and teacher reports were compared to an IQ-matched group of children with special educational needs (SEN) without ASD (N = 80) and UK population data. Parents and teachers reported a lower prevalence of friendships compared to population norms and to children with SEN without an ASD. Parents but not teachers reported higher levels of victimization than the SEN group. Half of the children with an ASD reported having friendships that involved mutuality. By teacher report children with an ASD who were "less" socially impaired in mainstream school experienced "higher" levels of victimization than more socially impaired children; whereas for more socially impaired children victimization did not vary by school placement. Strategies are required to support and improve the social interaction skills of children with an ASD, to enable them to develop and maintain meaningful peer friendships and avoid victimization. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

Background: The cognitive bases of language impairment in specific language impairment (SLI) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) were investigated in a novel non-word comparison task which manipulated phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and speech perception, both implicated in poor non-word repetition. Aims: This study aimed to investigate the contributions of PSTM and speech perception in non-word processing and whether individuals with SLI and ASD plus language impairment (ALI) show similar or different patterns of deficit in these cognitive processes. Method & Procedures: Three groups of adolescents (aged 14-17 years), 14 with SLI, 16 with ALI, and 17 age and non-verbal IQ matched typically developing (TD) controls, made speeded discriminations between non-word pairs. Stimuli varied in PSTM load (two- or four-syllables) and speech perception load (mismatches on a word-initial or word-medial segment). Outcomes & Results: Reaction times showed effects of both non-word length and mismatch position and these factors interacted: four-syllable and word-initial mismatch stimuli resulted in the slowest decisions. Individuals with language impairment showed the same pattern of performance as those with typical development in the reaction time data. A marginal interaction between group and item length was driven by the SLI and ALI groups being less accurate with long items than short ones, a difference not found in the TD group. Conclusions & Implications: Non-word discrimination suggests that there are similarities and differences between adolescents with SLI and ALI and their TD peers. Reaction times appear to be affected by increasing PSTM and speech perception loads in a similar way. However, there was some, albeit weaker, evidence that adolescents with SLI and ALI are less accurate than TD individuals, with both showing an effect of PSTM load. This may indicate, at some level, the processing substrate supporting both PSTM and speech perception is intact in adolescents with SLI and ALI, but also in both there may be impaired access to PSTM resources. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

Background: Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and specific language impairment (SLI) are common developmental disorders characterised by deficits in language and communication. The nature of the relationship between them continues to be a matter of debate. This study investigates whether the co-occurrence of ASD and language impairment is associated with differences in severity or pattern of autistic symptomatology or language profile. Methods: Participants (N = 97) were drawn from a total population cohort of 56,946 screened as part of study to ascertain the prevalence of ASD, aged 9 to 14 years. All children received an ICD-10 clinical diagnosis of ASD or No ASD. Children with nonverbal IQ greater than or equal to 80 were divided into those with a language impairment (language score of 77 or less) and those without, creating three groups: children with ASD and a language impairment (ALI; N = 41), those with ASD and but no language impairment (ANL; N = 31) and those with language impairment but no ASD (SLI; N = 25). Results: Children with ALI did not show more current autistic symptoms than those with ANL. Children with SLI were well below the threshold for ASD. Their social adaptation was higher than the ASD groups, but still nearly 2 SD below average. In ALI the combination of ASD and language impairment was associated with weaker functional communication and more severe receptive language difficulties than those found in SLI. Receptive and expressive language were equally impaired in ALI, whereas in SLI receptive language was stronger than expressive. Conclusions: Co-occurrence of ASD and language impairment is not associated with increased current autistic symptomatology but appears to be associated with greater impairment in receptive language and functional communication.

The objective of this study is to investigate whether parentally-reported gastro-intestinal (GI) symptoms are increased in a population-derived sample of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) compared to controls. Participants included 132 children with ASD and 81 with special educational needs (SEN) but no ASD, aged 10-14 years plus 82 typically developing (TD) children. Data were collected on GI symptoms, diet, cognitive abilities, and developmental histories. Nearly half (weighted rate 46.5%) of children with ASD had at least one individual lifetime GI symptom compared with 21.8% of TD children and 29.2% of those with SEN. Children with ASD had more past and current GI symptoms than TD or SEN groups although fewer current symptoms were reported in all groups compared with the past. The ASD group had significantly increased past vomiting and diarrhoea compared with the TD group and more abdominal pain than the SEN group. The ASD group had more current constipation (when defined as bowel movement less than three times per week) and soiling than either the TD or SEN groups. No association was found between GI symptoms and intellectual ability, ASD severity, ASD regression or limited or faddy diet. Parents report more GI symptoms in children with ASD than children with either SEN or TD children but the frequency of reported symptoms is greater in the past than currently in all groups. Keywords Autism * Autism spectrum disorders * Gastro-intestinal symptoms * Dietary intake * Regression, Introduction An association between gastro-intestinal pathology and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) attracted little attention for many years (Horvath et al. 1999). It was given impetus by the report of ileal-lymphoid-nodular [...]

A response by Tony Charman and colleagues to a letter to the editor about their article "Validation of the Social Communication Questionnaire in a Population Cohort of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders," published in a previous issue of this periodical is presented.