Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger's syndrome or Asperger's, is a diagnostic label that has been used to describe a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. Asperger syndrome has been merged with other conditions into autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is no longer a diagnosis in the WHO's ICD-11 or the APA's DSM-5-TR. It was considered milder than other diagnoses which were merged into ASD due to relatively unimpaired spoken language and intelligence.
A toddler is a child approximately 1 to 3 years old, though definitions vary. The toddler years are a time of great cognitive, emotional and social development. The word is derived from "to toddle", which means to walk unsteadily, like a child of this age.
Babbling is a stage in child development and a state in language acquisition during which an infant appears to be experimenting with uttering articulate sounds, but does not yet produce any recognizable words. Babbling begins shortly after birth and progresses through several stages as the infant's repertoire of sounds expands and vocalizations become more speech-like. Infants typically begin to produce recognizable words when they are around 12 months of age, though babbling may continue for some time afterward.
Early childhood education (ECE), also known as nursery education, is a branch of education theory that relates to the teaching of children from birth up to the age of eight. Traditionally, this is up to the equivalent of third grade. ECE is described as an important period in child development.
Developmental disorders comprise a group of psychiatric conditions originating in childhood that involve serious impairment in different areas. There are several ways of using this term. The most narrow concept is used in the category "Specific Disorders of Psychological Development" in the ICD-10. These disorders comprise developmental language disorder, learning disorders, developmental coordination disorders, and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In broader definitions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is included, and the term used is neurodevelopmental disorders. Yet others include antisocial behavior and schizophrenia that begins in childhood and continues through life. However, these two latter conditions are not as stable as the other developmental disorders, and there is not the same evidence of a shared genetic liability.
A language delay is a language disorder in which a child fails to develop language abilities at the usual age-appropriate period in their developmental timetable. It is most commonly seen in children ages two to seven years-old and can continue into adulthood. The reported prevalence of language delay ranges from 2.3 to 19 percent.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to autism:
Language development in humans is a process which starts early in life. Infants start without knowing a language, yet by 10 months, babies can distinguish speech sounds and engage in babbling. Some research has shown that the earliest learning begins in utero when the fetus starts to recognize the sounds and speech patterns of its mother's voice and differentiate them from other sounds after birth.
Autism therapies include a wide variety of therapies that help people with autism, or their families. Such methods of therapy seek to aid autistic people in dealing with difficulties and increase their functional independence.
Early childhood intervention (ECI) is a support and educational system for very young children who have been victims of, or who are at high risk for child abuse and/or neglect as well as children who have developmental delays or disabilities. Some states and regions have chosen to focus these services on children with developmental disabilities or delays, but Early Childhood Intervention is not limited to children with these disabilities.
Brian James MacWhinney is a Professor of Psychology and Modern Languages at Carnegie Mellon University. He specializes in first and second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and the neurological bases of language, and he has written and edited several books and over 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on these subjects. MacWhinney is best known for his competition model of language acquisition and for creating the CHILDES and TalkBank corpora. He has also helped to develop a stream of pioneering software programs for creating and running psychological experiments, including PsyScope, an experimental control system for the Macintosh; E-Prime, an experimental control system for the Microsoft Windows platform; and System for Teaching Experimental Psychology (STEP), a database of scripts for facilitating and improving psychological and linguistic research.
In human development, muteness or mutism is defined as an absence of speech, with or without an ability to hear the speech of others. Mutism is typically understood as a person's inability to speak, and commonly observed by their family members, caregivers, teachers, doctors or speech and language pathologists. It may not be a permanent condition, as muteness can be caused or manifest due to several different phenomena, such as physiological injury, illness, medical side effects, psychological trauma, developmental disorders, or neurological disorders. A specific physical disability or communication disorder can be more easily diagnosed. Loss of previously normal speech (aphasia) can be due to accidents, disease, or surgical complication; it is rarely for psychological reasons.
Child development involves the biological, psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings between birth and the conclusion of adolescence. It is—particularly from birth to five years— a foundation for a prosperous and sustainable society.
The Hanen Centre is a not-for-profit registered charitable organization, based in Toronto, Canada. It defines its mission as, “providing the important people in a child’s life with the knowledge and training they need to help the child develop the best possible language, social and literacy skills”.
Memory is one of the brain's most critical functions. It has the infinite ability to store information about events and experiences that occur constantly. Experiences shape the way memories form, so major stressors on socioeconomic status can impact memory development. Socioeconomic status (SES) is a measurement of social standing based on income, education, and other factors. Socioeconomic status can differ cross-culturally, but is also commonly seen within cultures themselves. It influences all spectrums of a child's life, including cognitive development, which is in a crucial and malleable state during early stages of childhood. In Canada, most children grow up in agreeable circumstances, however an unfortunate 8.1% are raised in households that fall into the category of low socioeconomic status. These children are at risk for many disadvantages in life, including deficits in memory processing, as well as problems in language development.
The history of autism spans over a century; autism has been subject to varying treatments, being pathologized or being viewed as a beneficial part of human neurodiversity. The understanding of autism has been shaped by cultural, scientific, and societal factors, and its perception and treatment change over time as scientific understanding of autism develops.
D. Kimbrough Oller, also known as Kim Oller, is an American scientist who has contributed to the fields of the evolution of language, child phonology, speech-language pathology, and to the fields of bilingualism and second-language acquisition. He is currently Professor and Plough Chair of Excellence at the University of Memphis, where he directs the Origin of Language Laboratories. He is also an external faculty member of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research and a permanent member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the LENA Foundation of Boulder, Colorado. Oller was elected as a Fellow of the American Speech–Language–Hearing Association (ASHA) in 2004 and was granted the Honors of ASHA in 2013. In 2022 he was elected as a Lifetime Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Dana L. Suskind is a Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics at the University of Chicago Medical Center ; director of UChicago Medicine's Pediatric Hearing Loss and Cochlear Implant program; and founder and co-director of the TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health at the University of Chicago.
Alejandrina Cristia is an Argentinian linguist known for research on infant-directed speech, daylong audio recordings of children's diverse linguistic environments, and language acquisition across cultures. Cristia is interested in how phonetic and phonological representations are formed during infancy and their interactions with other linguistic formats and cognitive mechanisms. She holds the position of Research Director of the Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (LSCP) at the Paris Sciences et Lettres University.
Daniel S. Messinger is an American interdisciplinary developmental psychologist, and academic. His research works span the field of developmental psychology with a focus on emotional and social development of children and infants, and the interactive behavior of children in preschool inclusive classroom.
