Comparison of gesture-vocal synchrony and gestures of two children aged 3 to 26 months with and without autism spectrum disorder.

This study looked at how two babies (3-26 months old) used gestures and sounds with their mothers. One child was later diagnosed with autism at age 3, the other wasn't. The researchers found that while both children used similar types of gestures, the child with autism had more difficulty coordinating gestures with sounds and connecting with their mother. The child with autism also had trouble understanding discomfort signals and showed delayed language development by 26 months.

This case study compared gesture-vocal synchrony and gestural development between two children from 3-26 months: one later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at age 3, and one neurotypical control. Using multimodal video analysis software, researchers examined mother-child interactions to analyze gestural frequencies, types, and synchrony patterns. The neurotypical child demonstrated better gesture-vocal synchrony and variety within a context of successful mother-child conjunction in the first year, leading to appropriate language development. The child with ASD showed difficulties with conjunction relationships, problems reading discomfort gestures, reduced engagement and shared attention, and delayed language acquisition at 26 months.

While both children showed similar gestural typologies, they differed significantly in frequencies, quality, and gesture-vocal synchrony patterns.

Early differences in gesture-vocal synchrony and mother-child conjunction may serve as potential early indicators of ASD risk. Findings suggest importance of supporting parent recognition of infant discomfort signals and promoting shared attention activities in early intervention approaches.

Single case comparison study with only two participants limits generalizability. No information provided about sample selection criteria, inter-rater reliability, or statistical analysis methods. Retrospective analysis of video footage may introduce selection bias in interaction moments analyzed.

The objective was to compare gesture-vocal synchrony in language functioning between mothers and babies and the gestural typology of babies from 3 to 26 months of age, one of them with autism spectrum disorder (case R), diagnosed at age 3, and the other without diagnosis (case B). It was select moments in which there was greater mother-baby interaction, from a bank of mother-baby interactions footage, from 3 to 26 months. It was analyzed using the Eudico Linguistic Annotator software ( ELAN), considering multimodal categories of sign language and speech of mothers and babies for descriptive statistical analysis. The results showed differences in the frequencies and types of gestures between the babies and also in the synchrony between them and their mothers.

In the case of B., the gesture-vocal synchrony and variety of gestures is inserted in a context of conjunction between him and his mother in the first year of life, which gave rise to the second enunciative mechanism in the second year of life. In case R, the conjunction relationships were not established, as the difficulties in reading discomfort and annoyance gestures, very present in the baby since its first months of life, hindered the engagement and shared attention of the mother and her baby, disfavoring the inscription of gesture as language. R. showed language acquisition delay at 26 months. Although the gestural typology of B and R are similar, the frequencies, the quality and, above all, the gesture-vocal synchrony differ between dyads.