Predictors of Parent Responsiveness to One-Year-Olds at-Risk for ASD

Background: Parent responsiveness is critical to child development of cognition, social-communication, and self-regulation. When parents are “responsive,” they provide quick, meaningful responses to a child, based on the child’s focus of attention. Parents may respond differently, depending on the child’s initial characteristics. In children with and without risk for ASD, higher social-communication skills tend to elicit more parental responses. Research has also found associations between hyperresponsiveness in infants and lower maternal responsiveness. However, no research has examined how parent responsiveness is associated with sensory characteristics of children at-risk for ASD. It is essential to understand factors that influence parent-child relationships, specifically parent responsiveness, so that professionals and families can use this information to inform early interventions targeting parent-child relationships.

Objectives: For the current study, we examined the extent to which child social-communication and sensory response patterns (i.e., hyper- and hypo-responsiveness) predicted parent responsiveness to one-year-olds recently identified as at-risk for ASD.

Methods: The sample included 97 parent-infant pairs. Infants were at risk for an ASD diagnosis, based on parent responses to the First Year Inventory 2.0 at 12 months of age. Data were collected on the following child variables: nonverbal cognitive level (“Visual Reception” subscale on the Mullen Scales of Early Learning); social-communication (Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales-Developmental Profile: Behavioral Sample [CSBS-DP-BS] and Caregiver Questionnaire [CSBS-DP-CQ]); and sensory response patterns (“hyporesponsiveness” and “hyperresponsiveness” scores on the Sensory Experiences Questionnaire [SEQ] and Sensory Processing Assessment for Young Children [SPA]). Parent responsiveness was measured via a 10-minute parent-child free-play video, and was later coded using an interval coding system. Parent responsiveness was calculated using a proportion: the numerator included 5-second intervals with a parent response and the denominator included the total 5-second intervals. We ran hierarchical regression models with parent responsiveness as the dependent variable and child behaviors as independent variables.

Results: Hyporesponsiveness consistently added power to predict variance in parent responsiveness across multiple models, whereas hyperresponsiveness did not consistently do so. The addition of either hyporesponsiveness measure increased the predictive power, regardless of which child communication measure was included in the baseline model. All models that included a combination of child communication (CSBS-DP-CQ or CSBS-DP-BS) and hyporesponsiveness (SPA or SEQ) significantly predicted: (a) 13 – 21% of the variance in single play responses (i.e., parents tended to play without talking when children demonstrated more hyporesponsiveness and lower communication skills); and (b) 8 – 12% of the variance in single follow-in responses (i.e., parents tended to talk without playing when children demonstrated less hyporesponsiveness and higher communication skills).

Conclusions: Among a community sample of infants at-risk for ASD, a combination of child communication and sensory hyporesponsiveness was the most robust predictor of parent responsiveness. Specifically, parents tended to use fewer verbal responses and more physical play responses when their child demonstrated less communication and more hyporesponsiveness. These findings highlight the importance of communication and sensory characteristics (particularly hyporesponsiveness) of children at-risk for ASD, as these characteristics may influence the nature of parent responsive behaviors, which have theoretical importance for early parent-mediated interventions.