A longitudinal study on language acquisition in monozygotic twins concordant for autism and hyperlexia.
Autism
Case study
Hyperlexia
Language
Longitudinal
Monozygotic twins
Journal
Brain and cognition
ISSN: 1090-2147
Titre abrégé: Brain Cogn
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 8218014
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
Dec 2023
Dec 2023
Historique:
received:
03
08
2023
revised:
06
10
2023
accepted:
09
10
2023
medline:
11
12
2023
pubmed:
16
10
2023
entrez:
15
10
2023
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Hyperlexia, a strong orientation towards written materials, along with a discrepancy between the precocious acquisition of decoding skills and weaker comprehension abilities, characterizes up to 20% of autistic children. Sometimes perceived as an obstacle to oral language acquisition, hyperlexia may alternatively be the first step in a non-social pathway of language acquisition in autism. We describe two monozygotic twin brothers, both autistic and hyperlexic, from the ages of 4 to 8 years old. Following an in-depth diagnostic assessment, we investigated cross-sectionally and longitudinally their verbal and non-verbal cognitive abilities, language, reading and writing skills, interests, and strengths. The twins' features, including their high non-verbal level of intelligence, their special interests, and their skills in various domains, were highly similar. Their language consisted exclusively of letters and numbers until their fourth year. After that, their vocabulary broadened until they developed full sentences, and their perception-related interests expanded and merged over time to serve the development of other skills. Our results show that hyperlexic skills can be harnessed to favor oral language development. Given the strong concordance between the twins' cognitive and behavioral phenotypes, we discuss the environmental and genetic influence that could explain their abilities.
Sections du résumé
BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND
Hyperlexia, a strong orientation towards written materials, along with a discrepancy between the precocious acquisition of decoding skills and weaker comprehension abilities, characterizes up to 20% of autistic children. Sometimes perceived as an obstacle to oral language acquisition, hyperlexia may alternatively be the first step in a non-social pathway of language acquisition in autism.
METHOD
METHODS
We describe two monozygotic twin brothers, both autistic and hyperlexic, from the ages of 4 to 8 years old. Following an in-depth diagnostic assessment, we investigated cross-sectionally and longitudinally their verbal and non-verbal cognitive abilities, language, reading and writing skills, interests, and strengths.
RESULTS
RESULTS
The twins' features, including their high non-verbal level of intelligence, their special interests, and their skills in various domains, were highly similar. Their language consisted exclusively of letters and numbers until their fourth year. After that, their vocabulary broadened until they developed full sentences, and their perception-related interests expanded and merged over time to serve the development of other skills.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSIONS
Our results show that hyperlexic skills can be harnessed to favor oral language development. Given the strong concordance between the twins' cognitive and behavioral phenotypes, we discuss the environmental and genetic influence that could explain their abilities.
Identifiants
pubmed: 37839243
pii: S0278-2626(23)00158-6
doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2023.106099
pii:
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
106099Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.