Quantifying latent social motivation and its associations with joint attention and language in infants at high and low likelihood for autism spectrum disorder.

ABSTRACT: Social motivation-the psychobiological predisposition for social orienting, seeking social contact, and maintaining social interaction-manifests in early infancy and is hypothesized to be foundational for social communication development in typical and atypical populations. However, the lack of infant social-motivation measures has hindered delineation of associations between infant social motivation, other early-arising social abilities such as joint attention, and language outcomes. To investigate how infant social motivation contributes to joint attention and language, this study utilizes a mixed longitudinal sample of 741 infants at high (HL = 515) and low (LL = 226) likelihood for ASD. Using moderated nonlinear factor analysis (MNLFA), we incorporated items from parent-report measures

SUBMITTER: Stallworthy IC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10591497 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature