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Saturday, May 9, 2009
Northwest Hall (Chicago Hilton)
12:00 PM
Background:
Triadic attention, requesting and sharing interest in events and objects with a social partner, emerges by 12 months of age. It involves infants initiating interactions with a social partner about items in their environment. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) show deficits in triadic attention. The infant siblings of children with ASDs (ASD-sibs) demonstrate similar, if more subtle, difficulties as their affected siblings, providing a context in which to study the development of triadic attention in an at-risk population during infancy. While much is known about the triadic attention behaviors infants demonstrate with examiners in structured settings, less is known about the behaviors ASD-sibs and typically developing infants demonstrate with their parents in more naturalistic settings.
Objectives:
This study examined the frequency of triadic attention behaviors in ASD-sibs and infant siblings of children without an ASD diagnosis (COMP-sibs) at 8, 10, and 12 months of age across two contexts: A semi-structured setting with an examiner, and a more naturalistic setting with their parent.
Methods:
Two measures of triadic attention were administered to infants at 8, 10, and 12 months of age. During the Early Social Communication Scales (ESCS), a semi-structured measure administered by an examiner, infants were seated on their parent’s lap across the table from an examiner, who presented a variety of stimuli individually. Triadic attention was defined as infants initiating behavioral requesting (IBR) or initiating joint attention (IJA) behaviors. During the Triadic Play Interaction (TPI), a six-minute naturalistic measure of triadic attention adapted for this study, infants were seated on the floor across from their parent with a variety of toys displayed. IBR and IJA were coded in identical fashion across the ESCS and TPI. For each measure, rate-per-minute scores were calculated by dividing the number of triadic attention behaviors by the length of the measure.
Results:
Preliminary analyses yielded correlations between the rate-per-minute frequency of IJA, r = .89, p < .05, and IBR, r = .94, p < .02, across measures at 12 months (n = 5 ASD-sibs), suggesting that infants engaging in more triadic attention behaviors on the ESCS also engage in more of these behaviors during the TPI.
Conclusions:
A naturalistic measure of triadic attention with the parent (TPI) at 12 months of age was correlated with a frequently used semi-structured measure of triadic attention with an examiner (ESCS). This suggests that ASD-sibs who demonstrate a high frequency of triadic attention behaviors in one context with an examiner are also demonstrating high levels in a less-structured setting with their parent. This study will continue to examine infant triadic attention behaviors with the addition of 8 and 10 month data and a larger 12 month sample size, in order to better understand the development of triadic attention in ASD-sibs across context and social partner.
Triadic attention, requesting and sharing interest in events and objects with a social partner, emerges by 12 months of age. It involves infants initiating interactions with a social partner about items in their environment. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) show deficits in triadic attention. The infant siblings of children with ASDs (ASD-sibs) demonstrate similar, if more subtle, difficulties as their affected siblings, providing a context in which to study the development of triadic attention in an at-risk population during infancy. While much is known about the triadic attention behaviors infants demonstrate with examiners in structured settings, less is known about the behaviors ASD-sibs and typically developing infants demonstrate with their parents in more naturalistic settings.
Objectives:
This study examined the frequency of triadic attention behaviors in ASD-sibs and infant siblings of children without an ASD diagnosis (COMP-sibs) at 8, 10, and 12 months of age across two contexts: A semi-structured setting with an examiner, and a more naturalistic setting with their parent.
Methods:
Two measures of triadic attention were administered to infants at 8, 10, and 12 months of age. During the Early Social Communication Scales (ESCS), a semi-structured measure administered by an examiner, infants were seated on their parent’s lap across the table from an examiner, who presented a variety of stimuli individually. Triadic attention was defined as infants initiating behavioral requesting (IBR) or initiating joint attention (IJA) behaviors. During the Triadic Play Interaction (TPI), a six-minute naturalistic measure of triadic attention adapted for this study, infants were seated on the floor across from their parent with a variety of toys displayed. IBR and IJA were coded in identical fashion across the ESCS and TPI. For each measure, rate-per-minute scores were calculated by dividing the number of triadic attention behaviors by the length of the measure.
Results:
Preliminary analyses yielded correlations between the rate-per-minute frequency of IJA, r = .89, p < .05, and IBR, r = .94, p < .02, across measures at 12 months (n = 5 ASD-sibs), suggesting that infants engaging in more triadic attention behaviors on the ESCS also engage in more of these behaviors during the TPI.
Conclusions:
A naturalistic measure of triadic attention with the parent (TPI) at 12 months of age was correlated with a frequently used semi-structured measure of triadic attention with an examiner (ESCS). This suggests that ASD-sibs who demonstrate a high frequency of triadic attention behaviors in one context with an examiner are also demonstrating high levels in a less-structured setting with their parent. This study will continue to examine infant triadic attention behaviors with the addition of 8 and 10 month data and a larger 12 month sample size, in order to better understand the development of triadic attention in ASD-sibs across context and social partner.