Discussion

In this study, we examined infant vocalizations and maternal responses to those vocalizations at 9 months of age, and relations between high risk mothers’ responsiveness to their infants’ vocalizations and maternal characteristics hypothesized to contribute to their behavioral responses. We found no differences in infants’ vowel and consonant-vowel production rates at 9 months of age between low risk typically developing infants, high risk infants who were not diagnosed with ASD, and in the small subset of infants who later were classified as meeting criteria for ASD....

Our results clearly demonstrate...... Mothers of high risk infants are talking to their babies, and critically, contingently responding, and thus reinforcing

infants’ early language production. The feedback they provide to their infants’ 9-month vocalizations is no different in terms of both frequency and content as mothers of low risk infants. These results suggest that risk status does not negatively influence maternal behavior in this domain. This is now one of several studies demonstrating that on the whole, mothers of high risk infants show little differences in the lingustic and communicative input they provide to their infants (Campbell et al., 2014; Leezenbaum et al., 2013; Talbott et al., 2015b; Wan et al., 2012, 2013). .....Future investigations should also determine whether intervening to increase high risk mothers’ frequency of contingent responses results in increased frequency of concurrent infant vocalizations or more rapid language development. Such studies would have clear and important implications for early intervention practices and are of particular interest for high risk infant siblings who are exhibiting overt delays

in early language, as has been reported in other samples.

To Summarize for our Readers

This is another bullshit study, paid for and endorsed by -- "This work was supported by grants from the NIH (R01-DC010290 and R21 DC 08637), Autism Speaks, and the Simons Foundation (137186). "  So mothers of a child already diagnosed with Autism, were watched with their next child born, to see if they supported that child's early language.  Those mothers were assessed for Broad Autism Phenotype  characteristics, to add insult to injury, as well as identifying depression and anxiety as possible factors and of course NONE of their hypotheses panned out for the researchers:

Finally, to examine relationships between maternal vocalizations and maternal and family characteristics hypothesized to influence their vocalization patterns, Pearson correlations were calculated to assess the relations between Maternal Total Utterances and Total Contingent Responses and maternal and family background characteristics of interest: concurrent infant autism symptoms and mothers’ ASD-related concerns, maternal self-reported broader phenotype characteristics, and the older diagnosed child’s symptom severity. Zero-order Pearson’s correlation coefficients are presented in Table 4. None of these associations were significant.

This is not the first time this has been investigated and the authors have the nerve to recommend MORE research down this lame, utterly insignificant and completely 1960's crap. 

Recommending more bad research is like a guarantee of more cash for these folks.  It seems morally, ethically and financially WRONG. Come on NIH and Autism Speaks!.... (and what/who is the Simons Foundation?)

Teresa Conrick is Contributing Editor to Age of Autism.