Correlates of Elicited and Spontaneous Imitation in Young Children with Autism

Background: Children with autism have been found to be significantly impaired in imitation skills.  Previous research on imitation in autism has focused primarily on different forms (e.g., object vs. gesture) and different time courses (immediate vs. deferred) of imitation, suggesting that children with autism are more impaired in some imitative areas than others and that some aspects of imitation are more closely associated with other social-communication skills than others.  Recently, there has been an interest in examining different contexts of imitation.  McDuffie et al. (2007) demonstrated that elicited imitation is associated with ability to follow another’s attention, whereas spontaneous imitation is associated with social reciprocity, suggesting that imitation in different contexts may be mediated by different underlying skill sets.

Objectives: The goal of this study is to replicate McDuffie et al.’s findings regarding different predictors of imitation performance in elicited and spontaneous contexts, and to examine whether elicited and spontaneous imitation differ in their relationship with other social-communication skills. 

Methods: Twenty-three children with autism between the ages of two and four were administered standardized assessments of their cognitive, language, play, joint attention, social reciprocity, and elicited and spontaneous imitation skills. 

Results: After controlling for developmental level, spontaneous, but not elicited, imitation skills were associated with social reciprocity, replicated previous findings by McDuffie et al. (2007).  Both elicited and spontaneous imitation skills were associated with symbolic play.

Conclusions: Elicited and spontaneous imitation skills likely represent different skills sets, with the ability to imitate spontaneously being more closely associated with social interest than the ability to imitate in response to direction.  However, both types of imitation seem to play a role in the development of symbolic play.