Brief report: bidirectional association of core autism features and cognitive abilities in early childhood

We explored associations among the core behavioural features and developmental/cognitive abilities of 155 autistic children, assessed between ages 13–67 months and again around 1-year later to understand predictive directionality. Bidirectional, cross-domain association was apparent, albeit with stronger direction of effect from earlier cognition to later autism features (than vice versa). Exploratory sub-domain analysis showed that early non-verbal developmental/cognitive abilities (only) predicted subsequent social- and restricted/repetitive autism features, whereas early social features (only) predicted both subsequent verbal and non-verbal abilities. Although observational study design precludes causal inference, these data support contemporary notions of the developmental interconnectedness of core autism presentation and associated abilities—that behavioural autism features may influence cognitive development, but are likely also influenced by an individuals’ cognitive capacity.