Exploring cascading effects of sensory processing on language skills and social-communicative difficulties through...

This study investigated the association between Sensory processing (SP) (i.e., hyporesponsiveness, Sensory Seeking (SS) and hyperresponsiveness) at 10 months (M) and language/social-communicative difficulties at 24M, mediated through object play at 14M in young children at elevated likelihood for autism (EL). Parent-report instruments were used to measure all variables in younger siblings of children with autism (siblings, n = 74) and children born before 30 gestational weeks (preterms, n = 38). Higher scores of object play fully mediated the association between more SS and better language/less social-communicative difficulties. Hypo- and hyperresponsiveness at 10M did not seem to predict language heterogeneity at 24M, but more hypo- and less hyperresponsiveness at 10M were associated with more social-communicative difficulties at 24M. The explained variance in social-communicative difficulties and language was limited (15.25%-16.39%). Similar associations were found for siblings and preterms. This highlights that high frequency of SP behaviors does not necessarily negatively affect communication in young EL-children as is commonly assumed. Early object play skills play a role in the association between early SS and later language/social communicative difficulties. This implies that some criteria of the two core domains of characteristics of autism are interrelated in EL-children, and this may have implications for early intervention programs.