Milieu Teaching-AV: A Study to Assess an Adaptation of Milieu Teaching for Infant Siblings of Autistic Children That Encourages Looking to the Mouth
Father Flanagan's Boys' Home
Summary
This project will look at Milieu Teaching (i.e., a language intervention) that encourages looking to audiovisual speech cues (Milieu Teaching-AV) for infants with autistic older siblings (Baby Sibs), who are highly likely be diagnosed with autism or developmental language disorder (DLD), compared to Milieu Teaching alone (Milieu Teaching-NoAV). This study will specifically look at whether Milieu Teaching-AV (compared to Milieu Teaching-NoAV) results in (a) increased looking towards caregivers' faces, (b) increased communicative behaviors and language skill, and (c) increased engagement with the caregiver during play. We will also look at caregiver factors, such as their use of strategies and their attitudes toward the intervention they received.
Description
Language outcomes are highly heterogenous in autism and can impact long-term psychosocial, educational, and vocational outcomes for children on the autism spectrum. Thus, there is a pressing need to identify novel approaches to language intervention, ideally those that can be implemented in early stages of development, when brain and behavior are most plastic. Many have begun to consider "pre-emptive" interventions for infants with autistic older siblings (Baby Sibs), who are highly likely be diagnosed with autism or developmental language disorder (DLD) themselves. I hypothesize that a targe…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 0–1 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria: 1. chronological age of 6-12 months at study entry (±30 days); 2. an older sibling with an autism diagnosis, confirmed by a detailed developmental interview and administration of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-2); and 3. monolingual English-speaking household. Exclusion Criteria: 1. adverse neurological history; 2. known genetic condition; 3. pre-term birth (gestation \< 37 weeks); and 4. caregiver report of a diagnosed vision impairment or hearing loss
Interventions
- BehavioralMilieu Teaching-AV
Milieu Teaching is a previously developed and well established Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention. Key principles of Milieu Teaching include: (a) individualized treatment goals based on the child's entry-level communication abilities, (b) use of environmental arrangement, reciprocal social interactions and/or play routines with balanced turns to maximize engagement and opportunities for child attention or communication leads, (c) child-initiated teaching episodes, (d) adult modeling of communication targets and language, and (e) expansion of child communication with more complex strategies. Coaches will teach caregivers to engage their infant in play or routines around a standardized set of toys, follow their infant's attention or communication lead around these toys, and respond to their infant's communication acts by modeling and expanding those communication acts into more sophisticated strategies.
- BehavioralMilieu Teaching-NoAV
Milieu Teaching is a previously developed and well established Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention. Key principles of Milieu Teaching include: (a) individualized treatment goals based on the child's entry-level communication abilities, (b) use of environmental arrangement, reciprocal social interactions and/or play routines with balanced turns to maximize engagement and opportunities for child attention or communication leads, (c) child-initiated teaching episodes, (d) adult modeling of communication targets and language, and (e) expansion of child communication with more complex strategies. Coaches will teach caregivers to engage their infant in play or routines around a standardized set of toys, follow their infant's attention or communication lead around these toys, and respond to their infant's communication acts by modeling and expanding those communication acts into more sophisticated strategies.
Location
- Boys Town National Research HospitalOmaha, Nebraska