Recent research showed a link between a gene linked to autism and a language disorder known as specific language impairment.

Research team led by Sonja C. Vernes, of the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom, and colleagues studied children from 184 families with specific language impairment by testing for the association between language deficits and single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the CNTNAP2 gene. Screening for regions bound by the FOXP2 gene revealed this gene as a strong candidate for involvement in language problems.

The FOXP2 gene binds to the CNTNAP2 gene significantly down-regulating it. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the CNTNAP2 gene were associated with repetition of nonsense words, which is a heritable behavioral marker of specific language impairment. Research showed that the region where the polymorphism occurs is the same as that associated with language delays in autistic children.

Researchers said: "By integrating functional genomics and quantitative trait analyses, we have identified a shared neurogenetic pathway that is disturbed in distinct forms of language impairment."

Researchers concluded that this work represents a move away from isolated studies of individual genes and toward an understanding of molecular networks that may go awry in neurodevelopmental disorders affecting language.