Peer Ratings of Videotaped Story-Telling of Optimal Outcome Children with a History of ASD

Background: We are following children who have a history of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who no longer meet diagnostic criteria for ASD. These children have achieved social and language skills within the average range, receive little or no school support, and are considered to have  “optimal outcomes” (OO; Sutera et al., 2007; Helt et al., 2008; Kelley, Naigles, & Fein, 2010). However, it is unclear how peers perceive OO children.

Objectives: In a previous study, we asked naïve raters (aged 15-20) to rate transcribed narratives of stories told by children with OO, high-functioning autism (HFA), and typical development (TD) using the Tuesday book. Those results (reported at AACN 2013) indicated that OO and TD group stories did not differ, whereas HFA stories were harder to comprehend, contained more odd content, and were poorer in overall story quality. In the current study, high school peers rated videos of the narratives for “story goodness,” pragmatic language qualities, and global presentation.

Methods: Forty-five participants with HFA, TD or OO (n=15 per group) completed the Tuesday story narration. Participants were matched on age (mean=12.9, range 9-15); while HFA group mean VIQ was slightly lower than the other two groups; no groups differed on NVIQ. Videos of the narrations were watched by five adolescents (ages 15-17), naïve to diagnosis, who rated the narratives on a five-point scale (1 = poor, 5 = excellent) for: overall story quality; dysfluency; ease of story comprehension; sophistication of language; correct use of grammar; presence of odd content and themes; and personal interest in the story. The students also rated the storyteller’s overall “oddness.”

Results: ANOVAs probed for group differences in peer story ratings. HFA ratings were significantly higher for odd content and themes [M(SD)= 3.9(0.7), 4.4(0.4), and 4.4(0.3) for HFA, OO, and TD, respectively; p= .01]; the OO and TD groups did not differ. The OO stories received marginally higher overall quality ratings than either TD or HFA [M(SD)= 3.0(0.3), 3.4(0.6), and 3.0(0.5) for HFA, OO, and TD, respectively; p = .05]. For overall oddness, OO and TD participants did not differ, and were rated as less odd than HFA participants [M(SD)= 3.4(0.7), 4.2(0.4), and 4.0(0.6) for HFA, OO, and TD, respectively; p< .01].

Conclusions: HFA narratives were rated as having more odd content than OO and TD narratives; there were no areas where peers rated OO narratives as poorer than TD narratives. Contrary to prior findings using transcribed narrative texts (Suh et al., 2013), videos of OO stories were rated better in overall quality than TD. It is possible that the story delivery (including vocal tone and gestures) made the OO stories more engaging. Finally, the HFA group was rated as generally more odd that the OO and TD groups; there was no difference between OO and TD children. Therefore, OO children produce stories equal to or better than those of TD children, suggesting significant symptom remission in the important domain of pragmatic language skills, as perceived by peers.