Brief Report: Parental Child-Directed Speech as a Predictor of Receptive Language in Children with Autism Symptomatology

Facilitative linguistic input directly connected to children’s interest and focus of attention has become a recommended component of interventions for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This longitudinal correlational study used two assessment time points and examined the association between parental undemanding topic-continuing talk related to the child’s attentional focus (i.e., follow-in comments) and later receptive language for 37 parent–child dyads with their young (mean = 21 months, range 15–24 months) children with autism symptomology. The frequency of parental follow-in comments positively predicted later receptive language after considering children’s joint attention skills and previous receptive language abilities.