This study examined the extent to which early intervention (EI) speech-language pathologists (SLPs) use and recommend language input strategies for caregivers of children with language delays and the child factors associated with these decisions. Participants included 213 SLPs who completed an online survey. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, Friedman's analyses of variance, and Spearman correlations were used to determine the extent to which EI SLPs used and recommended language input, child factors that influenced recommendations and input, and relationships between SLPs' self-reported strategies and recommendations to caregivers. EI SLPs reported recommending expanding on child utterances more than other strategies. EI SLPs reported using grammatical input more than telegraphic input and recommended grammatical phrases as children made gains in spoken language. Language strategies used by SLPs inconsistently aligned with their recommendations to caregivers. Results underscore the importance of evaluating recommendations to caregivers in the context of EI.
Baseline child characteristics may predict treatment outcomes in children with or at elevated likelihood of developing autism (EL-ASD). Little is known about the role of child sensory and language features on treatment outcome. Participants were randomly assigned to a parent-mediated intervention or control condition. Analyses explored the relationship between baseline child sensory and language characteristics and changes in ASD symptoms over approximately 9 months. Higher baseline sensory hyporeactivity was significantly related to less improvement in social communication (SC) for the treatment group only. More baseline atypical vocalizations were significantly related to less improvement on SC across treatment and control groups. This work provides an initial framework to encourage the tailoring of interventions for EL-ASD children, suggesting sensory reactivity and atypical vocalizations may be useful behaviors to consider in treatment planning.