Affective Expression in Verbal Children with Autism during Instrumental and Interpersonal Interactions

Background:

Kasari et al. (1993) observed that preschoolers with autism were impaired in the timing and use of affective expression. Hobson (1993, 2002) argues that autism involves reduced affective engagement, whilst Mundy (1995) discusses impaired social-emotional approach. The affective expression of school-age, verbal children with autism needs further investigation. There is some suggestion that such children do not differ from comparison groups in affective expression (Capps et al., 1998; Müller & Schuler, 2006).  It may be that reduced affect in this subgroup is seen within only certain types of interaction.

Objectives:

To test two hypotheses:

(1) The expression of positive affect will be reduced in verbal children with autism, both during the child communicative acts and communicative partner responses.

(2) This reduced affect will be seen particularly in specific contexts: in ‘interpersonal’ interactions (those which serve the sole purpose of sharing with another person) rather than in 'instrumental’ interactions (those which serve to meet an external goal).

Methods:

Participants: 18 children with ASD and 18 children with learning difficulties aged between 6 and 11 years with language abilities over 3 years. Groups matched on gender, chronological age, and expressive and receptive language. Diagnostic checks completed (ADOS and SCQ).
Procedure: Whilst engaged in the activity of building Lego cars, each child was instructed to deliver a brief message to another adult seated across the room (the communicative partner). Two of these interactions were instrumental (to get the car and to ask where the car was); two were interpersonal (to tell her about the car and to show her the car). After the child delivered each message, the communicative partner responded to the child in a natural positive manner.
Coding: The presence of child positive affect during the child’s communicative act and the partner’s response was coded from video-tape. Reliability was established on these variables (kappa > .72).

Results:

Overall, children with autism displayed significantly less positive affect. Children with autism expressed affect in 15% of their acts and the children with LD in 21% of acts. The autism group also expressed affect in 15% of responses, compared to 35% of responses for the LD group. The interaction between group and timing of affect approached significance.
However, a significantly greater number of children in the autism group showed affect within their instrumental acts than children in the LD group. Conversely, significantly more children in the LD group expressed affect during the response of the communicative partner in interpersonal conditions.

Conclusions:

Verbal children with autism express less positive affect during brief interactions with an adult. However, this is not across the board. Children with autism more often showed positive affect when communicating to achieve a non-social goal. Children with LD were more likely to smile and laugh in response to a positive and non-instrumental response from an adult. Evidence was found to support the notions of reduced social-emotional approach and reduced affective engagement. However, a distinction between instrumental and interpersonal contexts is crucial to pinpoint the precise nature of this deficit.