Poster #49 - Parents’ Contingent Influences on Symbolic Play Behaviors among Children with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Developmental Disabilities

Integrative Statement

The purpose of the study was to examine symbolic play in children with and without high functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and to measure parents’ contingent behaviors in play interactions. Though persons with high functioning ASD are comparable to typically developing (TD) peers in measures of cognitive ability, they exhibit deficits in their social-emotional functioning that have a number of adverse consequences. Symbolic play has long been established as having a critical role in children’s development of successful social interactions. It is important to understand differences in parent’s contingent scaffolding of play skills among children with and without ASD in naturalistic settings
Parent-child dyads engaged in a 5-minute free-play session. The sample consisted of 39 children (36 male) aged 33 to 78 months (Mage= 54.15 months, SD = 11.86). Children in the ASD group (n=19) met clinical and ADI-R criteria for autism (Lord, Rutter, & Le Couteur, 1994). Sessions were coded in 10-second intervals for child and parent level of play (i.e., no play to substitution pretense) and the presence/absence of child initiation of play and parent prompting.
Correlational analyses showed that child play level was significantly correlated with parent play level, rs (37)=. 814, p<. 001. Children’s mean level of initiation was negatively correlated with the parent prompting variable, rs (37) = -.420, p =. 009. Results of ANOVAs revealed a main effects of group on child initiation rate, F (1,35) = 4.321, p =. 045, a main effect of parent prompting on mean child initiation, F (1,34) = 7.579, p =. 009, and a trend effect of prompting on child’s mean level of play, F (1,34) = 3.370, p =. 075. Finally, contingency analyses were conducted, using a Yule’s Q statistic, to identify every temporal lag-1 association between a specific parent behavior and subsequent change in child behavior. Findings revealed that parent prompting was significantly more likely to be associated with an increase in child’s level of play for both groups. t(36) = 8.87, p < .01, M = .144, SD = .05 (HFASD), t(38) = 9.36, p< .01, M = .148 , SD = .05 (TD) . Prompting did not contingently predict child initiations for the ASD group, but did so for the TD group, t(38)= 8.032, p< .01, M = -.127, SD = .05. (See Figure 1)
Overall, parent prompting contingently predicted whether children moved to a higher level play act for both groups. Interestingly, when looking at child initiations, parent prompting seemed to have little to no association with these behaviors for the ASD group and actually predicted lower levels of initiation for the TD group. This seems to indicate that children with ASD maintained or decreased their levels of initiations after the presence of parent prompting; these children may need extra support in initiating behaviors despite their ability to show increases in levels of play in response to parental prompts. Implications for intervention will be discussed.

Group Authors

Department of Health and Behavior Studies, Teachers College, Columbia University

Authors

• Katie Kirkman, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author

• Laudan Jahromi, Teachers College Columbia University
  Non-Presenting Author