Global affective quality and discrete synchronous behaviours in the interactions of mothers and children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Background: Parent-child interaction is as essential to the early development of special needs children as it is for typically developing children. Although children with ASD have a specific deficit in social interaction, they can still profit from harmonious interactive exchanges to develop their potential. To date, however, mother-child interaction in ASD dyads has not been adequately explored.
Objectives: In this study we aimed to investigate the global affective quality as well as the synchrony of discrete behaviors, in mother-ASD child dyads by means of two different observation techniques.
Methods: Fifteen children with ASD aged 3 to 6 years and their mothers participated. Verbal mental age-matched Down syndrome (DS; n = 15) and typically developing children (TD; n = 15) served as comparison groups. Children and their mothers were videorecorded during free play, and their interactions were coded with the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS; Biringen, Robinson, Emde, 1998) and with an independent coding system that focused on the occurrence of mother and child initiations and responses classified in terms of dyadic synchrony.
Results: ASD children showed significantly lower EAS scores and lower occurrence of synchronous behaviuors than the other two groups of children. Mothers in the three groups showed few differences to one another. Sequential analyses revealed that child responses are more likely to follow synchronous maternal behaviours. Global affective quality in the dyads correlated with discrete synchrony behaviuors.
Conclusions: This study pinpoints strengths and deficits in mother-ASD child interaction and helps to identify areas of potential remediation through intervention. Future research in this direction should implement intervention programs focused both on specific emotional dimensions of child development and of the mother-child relationship.