Social Communication in Autism: Relating Teaching Style to Children's Affect and Expressive Behavior (2012)

Undergraduates: Margaret Fitch, Jessica Dykstra

Faculty Advisor: Steven Reznick
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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Joint attention (JA) and affect, considered key components of the social-communication mechanism that supports and precedes language, have been found to be related and are often deficient in young children with autism. With an older sample of children with ASD (ages 8-12), the current study seeks to investigate relationships among expressive communication (including JA) and affect, along with verbal mental age and autism severity. An experimenter engaged 25 participants from 4 schools in expressive nonverbal communication assessments. To extend past research on mother-child interactions, researchers observed and rated interaction styles of students’ teachers (n= 8) during group class time. Most subsequent analyses mirrored previous findings with younger children. Results showed lower proportions of JA compared to requesting behaviors, as well as strong correlations between JA and affect, and JA and receptive verbal ability, but between these and requesting behaviors. Surprisingly, autism severity did not correlate with any other factors observed. Teachers’ interaction styles were unrelated to the various child measures, with the exception of one negative association between punitive style and children’s requesting. Despite several limitations, the results provide a foundation for future exploration of JA, affect, and other social-communication skills in older children with autism and the influence teachers may have by virtue of their interactions.