TABLE 1.

Demographic and clinical traits for all participants (mean ± SD).

Characteristics	Toddler cohort			Preschool cohort
	ASD (n = 55)	TD (n = 40)	P-value	ASD (n = 37)	TD (n = 41)	P-value
Age (years)	2.4 (0.5)	2.2 (0.6)	0.27	4.6(0.5)	4.8(0.3)	0.11
Gender† (boys/girls)	50/5	33/7	0.22	33/4	33/8	0.29
CARS score	32.3 (1.5)	–	–	33.0 (2.1)	–	–

^†The p-value was obtained by χ² test; other p-values were obtained by a two independent samples t-test. CARS, childhood autism rating scale. Of the 55 toddlers, there were eight children who were younger than 2 years old (age ranging from 1.6 to 1.8 years old). The CARS scores were only calculated on children 2 years or older in the Toddler group.