"Early social communication scale"

Temperamental regulatory competence and social communication in term and preterm infants at 12 months corrected age was studied in a randomized controlled intervention trial aimed at enhancing maternal sensitive responsiveness. Surviving infants <2000 g from a geographically defined area were randomized to an intervention (71) or a control group (69), and compared with term infants (74). The intervention was a modified version of the "Mother-Infant Transaction Program". Regulatory competence was measured with the Infant Behavior Questionnaire, and social communication with the Early Social Communication Scales...

BACKGROUND: Deficits in joint attention (JA) and joint engagement (JE) represent a core problem in young children with autism as these affect language and social development. Studies of parent-mediated and specialist-mediated JA-intervention suggest that such intervention may be effective. However, there is little knowledge about the success of the intervention when done in preschools. AIM: Assess the effects of a preschool-based JA-intervention. METHODS: 61 children (48 males) with autistic disorder (29-60 months) were randomized to either 8 weeks of JA-intervention, in addition to their preschool programs (n = 34), or to preschool programs only (n = 27)...

OBJECTIVE: The study was to examine nonverbal communication in young children with autism. METHODS: The participants were 23 young children with autism (mean CA = 32.79 months), 23 CA and MA-matched children with developmental delay and 22 18-20-month-old, and 22 13-15-month-old typically developing toddlers and infants. The abbreviated Early Social Communication Scales [Mundy et al. 1996, Early social communication scales (ESCS)] were used to test three types of nonverbal communicative skills, i...

Children on the autism spectrum often demonstrate atypical joint attention, leading some researchers to consider joint attention deficits a core feature of the autism spectrum. Structured measures, such as the Early Social Communication Scales (ESCS), are commonly used to provide a metric of joint attention. To explore the assessment of joint attention in multiple contexts, we implemented an alternative system for coding joint attention behaviors. We compared initiation of joint attention (IJA) and response to joint attention (RJA) behaviors coded from naturalistic examiner-child play samples with similar IJA and RJA behaviors elicited within the structured ESCS protocol...

Infants with older siblings with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD-sibs) are at risk for socioemotional difficulties. ASD-sibs were compared to infants with typically developing older siblings (TD-sibs) using the face-to-face/still-face (FFSF) at 6 months and the Early Social Communication Scale (ESCS) at 8, 10, 12, 15, and/or 18 months. ASD-sibs smiled for a lower proportion of the FFSF than TD-sibs and lacked emotional continuity between episodes. With respect to TD-sibs, ASD-sibs engaged in lower rates of initiating joint attention at 15 months, lower rates of higher-level behavioral requests at 12 months, and responded to fewer joint attention bids at 18 months...

This study tested the effects of optimized neonatal mother-infant transactions on joint attention performance at 12 months. Surviving infants <2000g from a geographically defined area were randomly assigned to a preterm intervention (n=71) or preterm control group (n=69). Comparisons were made between preterm groups, secondary with a term group (n=75). Joint attention was measured using the Early Social Communication Scales. Preterm intervention infants scored significantly higher than preterm control infants on elements Initiating Joint Attention (p<0...

When do infants begin to communicate positive affect about physical objects to their social partners? We examined developmental changes in the timing of smiles during episodes of initiating joint attention that involved an infant gazing between an object and a social partner. Twenty-six typically developing infants were observed at 8, 10, and 12 months during the Early Social-Communication Scales, a semistructured assessment for eliciting initiating joint attention and related behaviors. The proportion of infant smiling during initiating joint attention episodes did not change with age, but there was a change in the timing of the smiles...

The early social and communicative development of very young siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is the focus of the current study. Three groups of children were included: (1) young children diagnosed with ASD, (2) younger siblings in families with a somewhat older child with ASD, and (3) young typically developing children. All children participated in a videotaped, structured interactional procedure called the Early Social Communication Scales (ESCS; [Mundy & Hogan, 1996, A Preliminary Manual for the Abridged Early Social Communication Scales (ESCS) Unpublished manual, University of Miami])...

The association between nonverbal requesting (as measured by the Early Social Communication Scales) and problem-solving skills (as measured by an object retrieval task) was examined in 16 toddlers who had Down syndrome, 18 toddlers with developmental disabilities of mixed etiologies, and 19 typically developing infants and toddlers. Toddlers with Down syndrome showed fewer instrumental requests than did those in the typically developing group, but equal numbers of social routine requests. Toddlers with Down syndrome also showed poorer problem-solving strategies and received more help than children in both comparison groups on the object-retrieval task...

We examined the longitudinal relationships between power data in two bands (i.e. 4-6 and 6-9Hz) of electrical activity in the brain at 14 months, as measured by background electroencephalograms (EEG), with protodeclarative and protoimperative pointing at 18 months, as measured by the Early Social Communication Scales (ESCS), [Mundy et al., ESCS: A Preliminary Manual for the Abridged Early Social Communication Scales, 1996, unpublished manual] (n=27). EEGs were recorded from 64 sensors using the Electrical Geodesics (EGI) system's dense array sensor nets...

The postoperative development of nonverbal communication was studied in 29 children, aged 18.2 (SD = 11.54) months, who underwent multilobar resection or hemispherectomy for intractable symptomatic infantile spasms (IS). Using the Early Social Communication Scale, the IS subjects had little, if any, social interaction, joint attention or behavior regulation before surgery. After a mean follow-up of 24 months, most of the children continued to have delayed nonverbal communication skills compared to normal children...

This study investigated the effects of an intervention for polydrug-using adolescent mothers. The program included educational, vocational, and parenting classes; social and drug rehab; and day care for their infants while they attended school half-day. The drug-exposed infants were similar to the nonexposed infants on traditional birth measures, although they had inferior Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale scores, including habituation, orientation, abnormal reflexes, general irritability, and regulatory capacity...

Canonical babbling of infants with and without Down syndrome was compared. Infants with Down syndrome and typically developing infants began canonical babbling in the first year of life, but the infants with Down syndrome began 2 months later. Once begun, their canonical babbling was less stable than that of typically developing infants. Age at onset of canonical babbling for the infants with Down syndrome was correlated with their scores at 27 months of age on the Early Social-Communication Scales. The results of this study suggest that Down syndrome influences vocal development in the first year of life and that early vocal development is related, possibly in combination with motoric and cognitive factors, to later social and communicative functioning of children with Down syndrome...

This study was designed to examine the degree to which individual differences in gestural joint attention skills predicted language development among autistic children. A group of 15 autistic children (mean CA = 45 months) were matched with one group of mentally retarded (MR) children on mental age and another group of MR children on language age. These groups were administered the Early Social-Communication Scales. The latter provided measures of gestural requesting, joint attention, and social behaviors. The results indicated that, even when controlling for language level, mental age, or IQ, autistic children displayed deficits in gestural joint attention skills on two testing sessions that were 13 months apart...