The association between parental interaction style and children’s joint engagement in families with toddlers with autism

Abstract

Purpose This study examines the relationship between parental interaction style (responsive vs directive) and child-initiated joint engagement within caregiver–child interactions with toddlers diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. Method Videotaped interactions of 85 toddler–caregiver dyads were coded for child engagement and both parental responsiveness and directiveness. Results Altogether, children spent less than one-third of the interaction jointly engaged. After controlling for child characteristics, parental style was associated with the initiator (child or parent) of joint engagement. Specifically, responsiveness predicted total time in child-initiated joint engagement, while directiveness predicted total time in parent-initiated joint engagement. Children’s social behaviours were associated with child-initiated joint engagement. Discussion Social initiations are a key target for children with autism spectrum disorders. Results demonstrate that child initiations and global social behaviour ratings are associated with parental responsivity. Responsivity may be a critical factor to facilitate children’s initiations.

Increasing Responsive Parent–Child Interactions and Joint Engagement: Comparing the Influence of Parent-Mediated Intervention and Parent Psychoeducation

“…The validity of the MBRS subscales have been examined through factor analysis (Mahoney et al 1986) and the MBRS has been used previously across atypical populations and interventions with high reliability (e.g., Fewell and Deutscher 2002; Kim and Mahoney 2005; Patterson et al 2014). High reliability has been demonstrated with the scale items when applied to families of TD children as well as children with developmental delays including ASD (e.g., Kim and Mahoney 2005).…”

“…Responsive interactions also predict language gain scores 3 years later for children with ASD (Haebig et al 2013) and 6 years later for children with Fragile X (Brady et al 2014). Further, parental responsivity has also been associated with the amount of time children spend jointly engaged, a state of engagement where children coordinate attention between a shared activity and their interaction partner (Patterson et al 2014; Ruble et al 2008). In children with ASD, joint engagement has been linked to gains in spoken language (Kasari et al 2008).…”

“…Yet, in comparison to TD children matched for language level, children with ASD are spending only a fraction of that same time jointly engaged (Adamson et al 2009). Time jointly engaged is associated with language development (e.g., Kasari et al 2008) and social behaviour including social initiations and joint attention (e.g., Patterson et al 2014). Children with ASD who already experience significant challenges in social communication are further at risk to miss out on daily language learning opportunities offered through time jointly engaged.…”

“…Evidence of improvement in child-initiated joint engagement for children with ASD is found in a number of recent randomized controlled trials of parent-mediated interventions (Kasari et al 2010, 2014a, b, 2015). While time jointly engaged is positively associated with parental responsive behaviour at baseline of intervention (Patterson et al 2014), parental responsiveness has not been examined in relation to changes in joint engagement over the course of a parent-mediated intervention.…”

Joint Engagement and Early Language in Young Children With Fragile X Syndrome

“…Although numerous other studies of parent-child interactions also used samples of behavior that range from 2 to 5 min (e.g., Meek, Robinson, & Jahromi, 2012;Siller, Hutman, & Sigman, 2013) or 6 to 10 min (e.g., Patterson, Elder, Gulsrud, & Kasari, 2014;Wan et al, 2013), 5 min of observation time is short in comparison with other studies that observed parent-child interactions from 15 to 40 min comprised of playing with toys, making music, book reading, etc. (Adamson et al, 2004;Bottema-Beutel et al, 2014).…”