Adapting the Early Communication Indicator as a Social Communication Outcome Measure for Young Autistic Children: A Pilot Study.

PURPOSE: We sought to conduct a pilot investigation of the reliability and administration fidelity of a new play-based measure of social communication for infants and toddlers with an autism diagnosis. METHOD: Our team adapted an existing measure, the Early Communication Indicator (ECI), for use with young autistic children in clinical and research contexts. In this brief report, we detail our adaptation process including administration and scoring of the final adapted measure based on data from a two-phase pilot study with young autistic children (N = 17). RESULTS: This adapted measure, the Early Communication Indicator-Autism (ECI-A), captured a range of scores for the ECI, Initiation of Joint Attention, and Directed Communication in pilot testing. Interrater reliability was moderate to strong across the scored behaviors. Finally, parents were able to administer the ECI-A with high fidelity with support from the research staff. CONCLUSIONS: This two-phase pilot study demonstrated promise for the ECI-A as a brief measure of social communication that can be administered by parents and reliably scored by trained staff with limited background in autism assessments. Validation of the ECI-A is presently underway. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.26042077.

Skin conductance as an indicator of anticipated concealed knowledge.

The present study investigated the effects of anticipation on skin conductance while participants were answering a set of questions which included one of concealed knowledge. Two experiments were conducted. In Exp. 1, 26 participants completed one experimental session. Each participant was asked to choose one two-digit number from 10 to 99 and was presented 19 other randomly generated two-digit numbers. The list of numbers was then presented to the participant on a computer screen, with a 60-sec. interval occurring every two questions. The participant-selected number was defined as the target question which was randomly placed within the 4th to 17th item of 20 questions stated as follows: "Is your selected number?" The participant was asked to answer "No" to all questions. The skin-conductance response to each question was measured. In Exp. 2, the experimental procedure was the same as that in Exp. 1 except each participant first answered 10 nontarget questions, then answered a target question with the participant's selected number, and then answered another 10 nontarget questions. There were a total of 21 questions. Analysis indicated participants in both experiments generated the highest mean skin conductance while answering the target questions, followed by lower amplitudes to questions prior to and after the target question. The skin-conductance response pattern can be used to identify the psychological process of anticipation of concealed information.