Longitudinal development of language and fine motor skills is correlated, but not coupled, in a childhood atypical cohort

Autism is often associated with early developmental delays in language and motor skills. However, little is known about the complex dynamic processes that drive the co-development of such early difficulties. The aim of the present study was to model the parallel growth of language and motor skills in a cohort of infants and to explore differences between infants with typical development and those with atypical development. Receptive and expressive language and fine motor skills were repeatedly assessed in a group of 239 infants (7 months at t1 and 36 months at t4) from the BASIS sample. Latent Growth Curve Analysis was applied to investigate the mutualistic coupling of longitudinal changes in these domains. Our results showed highly correlated slopes but we did not find an association between baseline scores in one domain and rates of change in the other (i.e., coupling). In the later diagnosed group we found that scores at baseline and rates of change were more variable. Greater variability at baseline combined with very strong correlations between the slopes, suggests that dynamic processes may amplify small differences between individuals at 6 months to result into large individual differences in autism symptomatology at 36 months.