Parents of Children with ASD Scaffold Novel Word Learning

Background: Language development in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is extremely heterogeneous, making the process of word learning important to study (Luyster et al., 2007). Although parental communicative behaviors are known to influence their child’s communication (Siller & Sigman, 2002), few studies have investigated parental labeling in ASD. Given that parents are children’s first and main source of language input at early ages, investigating parental labeling in naturalistic settings can provide insights into the underpinnings of lexical acquisition in children with ASD.

Objectives: This study examines the behaviors of parents of children with ASD and parents of typically developing (TYP) children while teaching novel object labels to their child. More specifically, we focus on two domains: first, whether or not parents spontaneously provide additional content during labeling episodes; that is, if in addition to the object label parents add information about its function, physical attributes, or the category it belongs to. Second, whether or not parents in both groups spontaneously test the oral production or the comprehension of the label.

Methods: Forty-six children (23 with ASD and 23 TYP) with an age range from 14 to 74 months at Time 1, and their parents, participated in this study. Families had English or French as a dominant language (30 English, 16 French). At Time 1, child language was assessed with the Mullen Scales of Early Learning and groups were matched on receptive language ability. Six months later, at Time 2, parent-child dyads engaged in a naturalistic task in which parents were asked to introduce two novel objects to their children using labels we provided. Interactions were videotaped and coded for parents’ use of additional content and testing behaviors that accompanied the labeling episodes.

Results: The proportion of parents who provided additional content did not differ between groups, p = .10. Likewise, the type of content that parents used followed the same pattern across groups: the intended function of the object was provided most often, followed by the superordinate category of the object and then by the physical attributes of the object. A significant group difference was found only in the production of superordinate category information, p = .008, with parents of TYP children using this more often. Secondly, the same proportion of parents (0.74) in both groups performed some type of testing of the acquisition of the label. Production of the label was tested most frequently, at a similar rate across groups, p = .53.

Conclusions: Both parents of children with ASD and parents of TYP children spontaneously enhanced novel object labeling episodes through the provision of additional content about the object and by testing their child’s learning of the novel label. The difference in the use of category information between groups should be explored in future research. Overall, these results support the implementation of parent-based interventions for children with ASD (Kasari et al., 2010; Prelock et al., 2011), given the aptitude parents demonstrated in introducing their child to novel words.