25099
Sequential Associations Between Caregiver Talk and Child Play in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typical Development
Objectives: To determine whether: (a) child functional play is more likely to elicit caregiver follow-in utterances than exploratory play, (b) follow-in utterances are more likely to elicit functional play than caregiver-focused utterances, (c) follow-in comments are more likely to elicit functional play than follow-in directives, and (d) any of the above sequential associations differed for children with ASD as compared to TD children.
Methods: Fifty children with ASD and 48 TD children who were group-wise matched on mental age (mean mental age ≈ 14 months across groups) were recorded during a free play interaction. Recordings were coded for caregiver talk and child play using 5 s partial-interval sampling. Sequential analysis methods were used to answer research questions. An index of sequential association was used as a dependent variable in mixed-effects models to account for nesting of behavioral sequences within caregiver-child dyads. Chronological age was used as a control variable in each mode.
Results: Analyses showed sequential associations between child play and caregiver follow-in utterances were stronger in the ASD group than the TD group, but did not differ according to play type. Follow-in utterances elicited functional play while caregiver-focused utterances had an inhibitory effect, and this distinction was more prominent for the ASD group than the TD group (Figure 1). Finally, across both groups of children, follow-in directives were more likely than follow-in comments to elicit functional play (Figure 2).
Conclusions: Our results indicate that, more so than TD caregivers, caregivers of children with ASD time their utterances to follow child play. Also, children with ASD may be particularly likely to benefit from caregiver’s follow-in talk when engaging with toy play. Our findings also invite a reappraisal of the role of directives (previously considered ‘asynchronous) in caregiver-child play, given our findings that follow-in directives elicit developmentally high-level play.
See more of: Social Cognition and Social Behavior