Associations between imitation types and language skills in autistic preschoolers

What is it about?

Many autistic children experience difficulties with language development. One factor that has been associated with the development of language skills is imitation. However, imitation is not a single skill. Children can imitate actions with objects, gestures, spoken language (verbal imitation) or actions that are reproduced after a delay in time (deferred imitation). These actions can be imitated spontaneously or after a specific instruction. In this study we examined how different types of imitation were related to language comprehension and language production in 176 autistic preschoolers. We found that children with stronger imitation skills generally had stronger language abilities. In particular, imitation of actions with objects and verbal imitation showed the strongest associations with language performance in autistic children with varying language skills. These associations remained significant even when differences in age and nonverbal cognitive abilities were taken into account.

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Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Imitation abilities are often targeted in interventions, for instance, in naturalistic developmental behavioural interventions. These interventions seem to improve the language skills of preschoolers with autism. However, little is known about the role of various aspects of imitation abilities within the language development of autistic preschoolers. Our findings suggest that different imitation skills may not contribute equally to language development and that some forms of imitation may be especially relevant for language learning in autistic preschoolers.

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