Child language and autism diagnosis impact hierarchical temporal structure of parent–child vocal interactions in early childhood

Abstract

Successful interactions involve conversational partners' flexibly adapting the timing of their behaviors. We measured the temporal patterns of vocalizations in parent-child interactions of typically developing (TD) and autistic infants/toddlers. While language growth made vocal interaction timing more flexible for TD child-parent dyads, it did not for autistic child-parent dyads who exhibited increased clustering of vocal interactions. Both language and social reciprocity play a role in the timing structure and flexibility of smooth interactions.