Nonverbal Communication in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders Interacting with Their Mothers: The Importance of An Accurate Analysis of Gestural Production

Background:  

Gestures are a specific type of communicative actions, with an important role in shaping intersubjective understanding (Iverson & Thelen, 1999; Capirci et al., 1996). Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) exhibit deficits in their spontaneous use of meaningful gestures and unlike children with language and/or cognitive delay, they do not tend to use gestures to compensate for social communication difficulties (Rapin, 2006). Despite the obvious importance of this issue for children with ASD, the literature on gestures in this population is relatively small. Moreover, research on this topic is not very specific and often is focused on “joint attention” gestures, notably pointing (Mundy et al., 2009); it is also focused on the quantity of gestures rather than on their quality.  The study of gestures in children with ASD might give many insights about the construction of communicative intentionality, help understanding different autism phenotypes and maybe potentially different therapeutic approaches. 

Objectives:  

Aim of the present study is to analyze gestural communication in spontaneous interaction between children with ASD and their mothers, focusing on the identification of different types of gestures and on the quality of their execution. 

Methods:  

Sixty mother-child interactions were analyzed: thirty children with ASD (ASD group), thirty children with other developmental disorders (DD group) matched on mental age evaluated using Griffiths Mental Developmental Scales. Preliminary results refer to the analysis of twenty interactions: ten children with ASD (chronological age: M=4.6, SD=0.8; mental age: M=3.4, SD=1.3), ten children with DD (chronological age: M=4.1, SD=1.3; mental age: M=3.5, SD=1.4). Videos were analysed with a specific coding scheme (Capirci et al., 2007) allowing a quantitative and qualitative analysis of gesture production: types (function and form), space of execution and associated gaze. 

Results:  

Analyses show significant differences between the two groups of children in all the investigated domains. The overall frequency of gesture production is much lower in the ASD group. As for gestures’ type and form, children with ASD use mainly contact gestures (pointing-touching and proximal pointing), while the DD group use more distal pointing and more conversational and representative gestures. Further differences emerge from the analysis of gestures’ quality: children with ASD tend to produce gestures in a peripheral space, usually not alternating gaze between the partner and the object while producing gestures.  

Conclusions:  

Through a detailed analysis of communicative gestures in interaction between mothers and children with autism, this study allows to identify:

(i) specific characteristics of gestural communication in children with autism in respect to children with other DD;

(ii) possible correlations between cognitive function and gestural performances;

(iii) different subgroups of children with ASD who may be more or less sensitive to a possible gestural training in communication skills.

An area of future research will be that of analyzing caregivers’ responses to children’ communicative actions in order to better understand the way in which the communicative profile of children with ASD may influence, and be influenced by, child-mother interaction.