An inquiry into how parents of children with autism spectrum disorder interact with their children in a motor skill-based play setting

Scoping review of behavioral coding measures used to evaluate parent responsiveness of children with autism or elevated risk of autism

LAY ABSTRACT

The topic of how parents react (e.g., how they talk and act) to their child with autism or elevated likelihood of autism, often called parent responsiveness, has been studied by researchers for over 50 years. Many methods for measuring behaviors around parent responsiveness have been created depending on what researchers were interested in discovering. For example, some include only the behaviors that the parent does/says in reacting to something the child does/says. Other systems look at all behaviors in a period of time between child and parent (e.g., who talked/acted first, how much the child or parent said/did). The purpose of this article was to provide a summary of how and what researchers looked at around parent responsiveness, describe the strengths and barriers of these approaches, and suggest a "best practices" method of looking at parent responsiveness. The model suggested could make it more possible to look across studies to compare study methods and results. The model could be used in the future by researchers, clinicians, and policymakers to provide more effective services to children and their families.

Parental scaffolding in play: A comparison of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and autism spectrum disorder

BACKGROUND

Parental support of child play varies based on child needs; however, how parental play level differs from child play level remains an understudied area of research, especially in relation to specific developmental disabilities.

AIMS

To preliminarily explore differences in child and parent play levels in age- and IQ-matched children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

METHODS

and Procedures: Parent-child dyads were recorded during free-play sessions. Parent/child play levels were coded for highest level achieved during each minute of play. Mean play level and dPlay (difference in parent versus child play level) were calculated across play sessions for each dyad.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

On average, parents of children with FASD demonstrated higher levels of play than other parents. Children with FASD demonstrated higher levels of play than their own parents. In contrast, the play level of parents of children with ASD did not differ from their child's. There were no between-group differences in dPlay.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

This preliminary exploratory study suggests that parents of children with developmental disabilities may differentially 'match' their child's play level. Further research on developmental play levels during parent-child play is warranted.

Parental Behavior Influences on Motor Skill Development in Young Children with Developmental Disabilities: A Two-Year Longitudinal Study

Young children with developmental disabilities (DDs) experience motor skill deficits compared to their peers without disabilities. Even though parents play an important role in developing their children's motor skills, it has not been widely studied how parental behaviors influence motor skill development in young children with DDs. Therefore, the current study has two main purposes: (a) to examine early motor skill development of preschool aged children (3-5 years) with DDs longitudinally over a two-year period and (b) to longitudinally examine the relationship between parental behaviors and the motor skill development of young children with DDs. Fundamental motor skills (locomotor and object control skills) in 64 young children with DDs and their parent's behavior was measured at five time points when children were between the ages of three and five years. Multilevel modeling was used to examine motor skill progression in young children with DDs and to evaluate the longitudinal relationship between parenting behaviors and motor skill development in young children with DDs. Findings indicated that young children with DDs develop their motor skills in a non-linear fashion across two years. Young children with DDs who have parents with one standard deviation higher (+ SD) in the positive parental behavior than average showed a statistically significant linear increase in the standard scores of locomotor and object-control skills with age (b = 0.27, p = 0.01; b = 0.22, p < 0.01, respectively). This study highlights the importance of positive parenting behaviors in regard to promoting motor skills in young children with DDs.

Development of a survey measuring parental physical activity support in parents of children with disabilities

PURPOSE

The purposes of the current study were to develop a questionnaire to measure parental physical activity (PA) support in parents of children with disabilities and to examine factors associated with parental PA support.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A questionnaire measuring parental PA support in parents of children with disabilities (PPSQ for PCD), consisting of three constructs (encouragement, co-PA, and logistic support) with 19 items, was initially developed and evaluated by the Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Three independent multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine associations between the three constructs and parental PA orientation variables.

RESULTS

With the item deletion approach, the final model with 12 items (four items in each construct) was developed, which revealed an excellent model fit (x2= 78.42 [df = 51, p = .008], CFI = 0.98, GFI = 0.94. RMSEA = 0.05). The multiple regression analyses revealed that parental orientation variables were differently associated with each construct of the PPSQ for PCD.

CONCLUSIONS

The PPSQ for PCD consists of three constructs, differently associated with parental orientation variables. This questionnaire can be used as an instrument to assess parental PA support. Implications for RehabilitationThe Parental Physical Activity Questionnaire (PPAQ) can be used to assess parental physical activity support in parents of children with disabilities.The PPAQ measures three constructs (i.e., types) of parental physical activity support including encouragement, co-physical activity, and logistic support.Parental physical activity orientations (e.g., importance, enjoyment, and behavior) are differently associated with each construct of parental physical activity support.

Brief report: Parent-guided movements during play with children with autism spectrum disorder

Background

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate social and communication impairments from an early age. While researchers have long investigated parenting behaviors in relation to children's social and communication development, fewer studies have examined the relevance of movement-based parenting behaviors to facilitating communication and social engagement with young children. The present study aimed to investigate: (1) parent-guided movements (PGMs) within dyads of parents and typically developing (TD) children and children with ASD; and (2) children's ASD diagnostic and receptive language scores as predictors of PGM frequency.

Method

Video-recorded play interactions of 33 TD dyads (mean age: 20.4 months) and 31 dyads with ASD (mean age: 32.6 months) were matched on child's expressive language. Data were obtained from a longitudinal study on developmental language trajectories in ASD and coded for PGMs.

Results

Overall, parents of children with ASD initiated PGMs more frequently than parents of TD children during play (U = 269.00, z = - 3.58, p < 0.001). PGM frequency was predicted by children's ADOS scores (X 2 = 5.46, p = 0.02, OR = 1.26, 95% CI [1.04, 1.54]) and receptive language (X 2 = 4.15, p = 0.04, OR = 5.43, 95% CI [1.10, 27.67]).

Conclusions

Findings suggest that parents of children with ASD and low receptive language may utilize more movement-based strategies to compensate for their children's impaired social engagement and verbal comprehension. This study offers insight on a particular movement-based modality characterizing ASD dyads that can be used as a measure in parent-mediated interventions.