Profiles of “Receptive and Expressive Language Abilities” in “Boys With Comorbid Fragile X Syndrome” and “Autism”

Andrea McDuffie, Sara Kover, Leonard Abbeduto, Pamela Lewis

University of Wisconsin—Madison

Ted Brown

New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities

The authors examined receptive and expressive language profiles for a group of verbal male children and adolescents who had fragile X syndrome along with varying degrees of autism symptoms. A categorical approach for assigning autism diagnostic classification, based on the combined use of the Autism Diagnostic Interview—Revised and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), and a continuous approach for representing autism symptom severity, based on ADOS severity scores, were used in 2 separate sets of analyses. All analyses controlled for nonverbal IQ and chronological age. Nonverbal IQ accounted for significant variance in all language outcomes with large effect sizes. Results of the categorical analyses failed to reveal an effect of diagnostic group (fragile X syndrome–autism, fragile X syndrome–no autism) on standardized language test performance. Results of the continuous analyses revealed a negative relationship between autism symptom severity and all of the standardized language measures. Implications for representing autism symptoms in fragile X syndrome research are considered.

Editor-in-Charge: Rose Sevcik

This research was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants R01 HD024356 and P30 HD03352. We would like to thank the families who participated in this study for their time, patience, and enthusiastic support.

Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to Andrea McDuffie, who is now at the MIND Institute, University of California, Davis, 2825 50th St., Sacramento, CA 95817, Email: andrea.mcduffie@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu

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