Behaviors related to autism spectrum disorder in children with developmental language disorder and children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome.

Our findings indicate that relations between early language impairment and other behavioral phenotypes may be more feasible to detect in a subgroup of children with a homogeneous etiology, than in a group of children with a heterogeneous etiology (such as children with DLD). Our results in 22q11DS reveal that receptive language is especially important in predicting the occurrence of ASD-related behaviors. Future research is needed to determine to what extent receptive language predicts the occurrence of ASD-related behaviors in children with DLD, especially among those children with DLD with the weakest receptive language. Clinically, screening for ASD-related behaviors in children with developmental language difficulties is recommended from a young age, especially among children with receptive language difficulties.