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Jealousy and Social Engagement in Very Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Objectives: In an attempt to illuminate the nature of autism's affective deficit, the present study aimed to conduct assessment of jealousy in very young children with ASD (personal–mother and nonpersonal–stranger) and to identify jealousy's linkage with experimenter-child's social egngagement.
Methods: Participants included 19 toddlers with ASD (CA=23.16, months). To provok jealousy we manipulated two triadic conditions (personal mother-child-baby doll scenario and nonpersonal stranger-child-baby doll scenario), consisting of the mother/stranger putting a "life-like newborn-baby doll" on her lap, and cuddling the newborn-baby doll (e.g., Hart, Aaron, Jones, & Field, 2003). Social engagament was tested through 3 interactive social tasks based on the ADOS (Lord et al., 2000) including bubble play; peek-a-boo and playing with a Balloon.
Results: Repeated measure ANOVA conducted to examine differences in protest behaviors between the two situations (personal/non-personal) revealed a significant main effect for situation, F(1,18) = 7.30, p < .05, η2 = .29. Young children with ASD showed more protest behaviors in the jealousy personal situation (mother-holding the baby-doll) versus the non-personal situation (stranger holding the baby-doll). Furthermore, eye gazes, physical proximity behaviors and verbal gestures were directed more towards the mother in both the personal and non-personal situations versus the stranger. Higher levels of social engagement were linked with more eye gazes, physical proximity behaviors and verbal gestures in the jealousy personal situation.
Conclusions: The fact that jealousy expressions were higher in the personal-mother condition than the nonpersonal - stranger situation and the link between jealousy and social engagement in very young children with ASD holds significant implications for understanding ASD children’s intersubjective capabilities.