Yale Child Study Center Grand Rounds: "Early Communication in Autism: A New Tool to Support Clinical Decision Making"

Communication challenges remain one of the earliest concerns of parents whose children eventually receive an autism diagnosis. Many existing measures in autism only characterize communication differences but are not designed to monitor improvement over time or support clinical decision making. This presentation will describe a new tool, the Early Communication Indicator for Autism (ECI-A), which is based on an existing norm-referenced, validated measure and can be easily used within clinical practice. The objectives of this presentation are to:

1. Describe how early communication skills in autism can be used to support early identification and diagnosis.
2. Describe a brief, play-based assessment designed to measure early communication skills of children with or at high likelihood of receiving an autism diagnosis.
3. Compare the early communication skills of autistic children to their non-autistic peers.

This will be a hybrid session, held live and in person from the Cohen Auditorium and simulcast via Zoom.