International Meeting for Autism Research (London, May 15-17, 2008): CAREGIVER-CHILD RELATEDNESS IN AUTISM: WHAT CHANGES WITH INTERVENTION?

Friday, May 16, 2008

Champagne Terrace/Bordeaux (Novotel London West)

J. A. Hobson , Institute of Child Health, UCL, University College London and Tavistock Clinic, London, London, United Kingdom

P. Hobson , Institute of Child Health, UCL, University College London and Tavistock Clinic, London, London, United Kingdom

S. Gutstein , The Connections Center, The Connections Center, Houston, TX

A. Ballarani , Institute of Child Health, UCL, University College London and Tavistock Clinic, London, London, United Kingdom

K. Bargiota , Institute of Child Health, UCL, University College London and Tavistock Clinic, London, London, United Kingdom

Background:

Children with autism have relatively typical attachment relationships, but their personal relatedness is atypical.

Objectives:

To assess whether children with autism show changes in relatedness with a parent-based intervention.

Methods:

Participants were 30 boys aged 3-13 years (M = 7y; SD = 3y), IQ scores 49-125 (M = 88.4; SD = 21.5), with autism or ASD, and ADOS social-communication scores 7 - 23 (M = 14.3; SD = 4.3). With their primary caregivers, they received Relationship Development Intervention®.

Two assessments of parent-child play were made by separate raters at treatment onset and later in treatment M = 19.6 months (9 – 38 months):

a) Dyadic Coding Scale (Humber & Moss, 2005) for interactions relevant to attachment e.g., communication, appropriate role assumption, mood, enjoyment.

b) Novel ratings of moment-by-moment states of interpersonal relatedness (Observer XT Coding System) on mutually exclusive categories: separate attention (attending to different objects/activities), parallel attention (attending to the same object/activity, but lack of awareness of joint focus), coordinated attention (mutual focus but little communication), or connected attention (joint focus on an object/activity involving mutual communication in relation to shared focus).

Results:

Preliminary results on a pilot sample suggest that dyadic interactions relevant to the attachment relationship had not changed with treatment (time 1 overall M = 4.70, time 2 M = 4.90, with mean scores very similar to dyads with typically developing children). In contrast, there were significant changes in moment-to-moment relatedness e.g., time spent in connected states of attention, time 1 M = 29%, time 2 M = 58% (p < .05). Furthermore, time spent in parallel attention without mutual communication was significantly related to lower ratings on the Dyadic Coding Scale.

Conclusions:

When children have autism, caregiver-child patterns of interaction may reflect stable attachment relationships. However, atypical relatedness may change with intervention.

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