Parent Behaviors in Relation to Characteristics of Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders (original) (raw)
Related papers
2013
Background and Aims: Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are characterized by deficits in social interactions and communication, and the presence of stereotypic behaviors and restricted interests. Children with ASD also demonstrate difficulties in emotional competence, including poor emotion regulatory capacity. The goal of this study was to investigate the link of social skills to emotion regulation and emotionality in 3 through 7 year-old children with and without ASD. Methods: Both parental report and behavioral laboratory observations were used to examine emotion regulation and emotionality in 21 typically developing (TD) children and 12 high functioning children with ASD. Results: This study had three major findings. First, an association between enhanced reported emotion regulation and increased social skills was found in children with ASD, but not in TD children. Second, children with ASD demonstrated lower reported emotion regulation, higher reported general negative emotionality, and lower reported general positive emotionality compared to their TD peers. Third, reported emotion regulation was linked to reported specific emotionality in children with ASD and to reported general emotionality in the TD group, though not in the predicted direction. Few significant findings occurred for observed emotion regulation or observed emotionality. Conclusions: Although current results should be interpreted with caution due to small sample size, a link between social skills and parent-reported emotion regulation was found in children with ASD. Children with ASD were also viewed by their iii parents as having poor emotion regulation and increased negative emotionality compared to their TD peers. Limitations and future research are discussed. I would like to thank many people who supported and guided me throughout the dissertation process. First, I would to thank my committee members. To Dr. Angela Scarpa, thank you for your patient, encouragement, direction, and mentorship throughout this project. Your care and dedication to your students are outstanding. You are the best mentor a graduate student can ask for! To Dr. Martha Ann Bell, thank you for your enthusiasm and belief that I could succeed and overcome this challenge. I feel incredible lucky that I met you during my graduate school career. I would also like to thank Julie Dunsmore, Thomas Ollendick, and Susan White for their assistance and contribution to this project. It was truly an honor to have them as my committee members. To the wonderful professors at Virginia Tech, thank you for your dedication to the progress of science and for sharing your expertise, and staff for your support all these years. I would also like to thank my family for always being there for me and for believing in me. Thank you to my sisters, Lily and Zinayda, my parents, Maria Granados and Jose D. Reyes, my grandparents, Anastasia Sorto de Reyes and Jesus Reyes, my brother, Romeo, and sister-in-law, Jane. You are my rock! I could have not succeeded without you. Thank you to the next generation, my niece, Sophia, and nephews, Spencer, Alexander, and Peter. You are my inspiration! Thank you to my aunts and uncles who always supported me even though they were not physically here.
Toward a Better Understanding and Improved Validity of Autism Symptom Measures Across the Lifespan
2014
I am indebted to Cathy Lord, my advisor and mentor, who has been an unprecedented model of a true clinical scientist, which I will always look to for inspiration throughout my career. Under her mentorship, the first and second studies (Chapter II and III) were published in the Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry and the Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders, respectively, in 2013. The third study (Chapter IV) has been accepted pending minor revisions by the Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders. I gratefully acknowledge the many individuals and families who participated in this research; it is their stories that give this work meaning and that fuel my passion for research. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Al Cain for his support, which has not wavered since the time I first met him as an undergraduate student with aspirations to become a Clinical Psychologist. I also want to thank my "UMACC" colleagues, particularly Somer Bishop, Liz Buvinger, Themba Carr, Marisela Huerta and Katherine Gotham, and Sophy Kim, who have provided both mentorship and friendship throughout the years. I am also thankful for the many staff in North Carolina, Illinois, iv Michigan and New York, who were involved in data collection and curation. In particular, I am grateful to Shanping Qiu for her good-natured willingness to fulfill last minute data requests; Nicole Saghy for attention to details of the SSC data; Emma Salzman for her support of the Weatherstone study throughout the UMACC-CADB transition; and Andrew Pickles for ongoing statistical consultation. I am also thankful to the Septaphiles, with whom I have had the honor of sharing the past 5 years. Finally, I would like to express my thanks to Chris Monk and Donna Martin for serving on my committee and providing valuable critiques to improve this work. v
Predictors of Parent Responsiveness to 1-Year-Olds At-Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2017
Parent responsiveness is critical for child development of cognition, social-communication, and self-regulation. Parents tend to respond more frequently when children at-risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate stronger social-communication; however, it is unclear how responsiveness is associated with sensory characteristics of children at-risk for ASD. To address this issue, we examined the extent to which child social-communication and sensory reactivity patterns (i.e., hyper- and hypo-reactivity) predicted parent responsiveness to 1-year-olds at-risk for ASD in a community sample of 97 parent-infant pairs. A combination of child social-communication and sensory hypo-reactivity consistently predicted how parents played and talked with their 1-year-old at-risk for ASD. Parents tended to talk less and use more play actions when infants communicated less and demonstrated stronger hypo-reactivity.
Early Identification in Autism: Subtypes Based on Child, Family, and Community Characteristics
American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 2019
Background. Disparities exist in the early identification of underserved children with ASD. Research suggests early parent concerns may be predictive of eventual child diagnosis and may aid in earlier identification of children with ASD. Our study used a large medical university sample to examine latent subtypes of children with an eventual ASD diagnosis based on parent concerns and socio-demographics. Methods. Prior to a diagnostic evaluation, parents reported their top three concerns on intake paperwork for 712 children 12 months-12 years of age. Parent concerns were coded into eight concern categories. We performed a latent class analysis to examine subtypes based on parent concerns, child (i.e., age and gender), family (i.e., socioeconomic status), and community characteristics (i.e., access to service providers). We used a MANOVA to examine latent class differences by age at the diagnostic evaluation and age of a parent's first concern. . Parent concerns and socio-demographics distinguished five latent classes. Two subtypes were identified younger (i.e., 3.5 years of age) and were differentiated by two parent concerns: communication and medical concerns. One of the younger subtypes included non-white, Hispanic children utilizing Medicaid. One subtype was identified around kindergarten and was differentiated by stereotyped and by developmental parent concerns. Lastly, two subtypes were identified at an older age (i.e., 9 years of age) with either developmental concerns, or social and behavior concerns. One of the oldest subtypes was characterized by females with ASD. Our study suggests that children with communication concerns are most likely identified by parents earlier, regardless of race, ethnicity, or SES. However, our findings point to the difficulty in identifying females with ASD, as well as children with social, behavior, and stereotyped parent concerns. mentor and co-chair, and Dr. Lauren Little, my research mentor. Dr. Winnie Dunn, you have always challenged me to reflect and think deeper. Thanks for always having the right advice at the right time, and encouraging me to reach my goals. I am a better and more innovative researcher today because of you. I would also like to provide a special thanks to Dr. Lauren Little, for her committed mentorship and dedication to my learning, research, and future as a scientist. Her passion for research is contagious, and the days when we would spend hours analyzing data together made more of an impact on me than you can imagine. I would not be the researcher I am today, have the knowledge I have today, or have the passion for research I do today, if it was not for Drs. Winnie Dunn and Lauren Little. I would especially like to acknowledge my dissertation committee members. Everyone's thoughtful feedback, perspectives, knowledge and mentorship have made a profound impact on not only the dissertation product, but me as a student. Thank you to Dr. Jeff Radel, my co-chair, for providing your support throughout the dissertation and always making sure the dissertation process and fulfillment of requirements was seamless. I also appreciate the grammatical feedback you gave to strengthen my writing. Dr. Evan Dean, thank you for your thoughtful feedback to the manuscript and my comprehensive exams. You are the reason I started the doctoral program, and you always drove me to become more inquisitive. Throughout the process, you have added positivity, always found time to meet when I had unanswered questions and shared knowledge and resources to assist in my learning and the data analysis section. I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Dwight Irvin, especially for his encouragement, quick feedback, willingness to answer a multitude of questions, uncanny ability to help with word count issues, v as well as his help structuring the discussion. Our meetings had an immense impact on the quality of the dissertation. I would especially like to thank Dr. Irvin for the numerous research opportunities he has provided, all of which have enhanced my learning about innovative research methods. Additionally, Dr. John Poggio helped immensely with the statistical analyses in the dissertation. He drove my curiosity to learn new methods, solve statistical issues, and helped the dissertation become a better product statistically. Thank you, Dr. Poggio for always fostering my motivation to learn more about statistics. I would also like to acknowledge and extend my gratitude to Dr. Brenda Salley. She provided me with a plethora of knowledge about the families and diagnostic center. Dr. Salley assisted in my understanding of the dataset and helping to frame a better research question and product. I truly appreciate her wealth of knowledge, encouragement, thoughtful feedback, and assistance with problem solving through the results and discussion section, all of which have enhanced my learning and provided a better dissertation process. I am also particularly grateful for the families who participated in this study, as well as the medical diagnostic center where this sample was drawn from. The families have made a tremendous impact on our understanding of neurodevelopmental diagnoses, and are advancing our knowledge for future families and children. Additionally, the medical diagnostic center's continued efforts to maintain detailed records for the dataset in this study made the analysis possible. Without the families and diagnostic center, this research would not be possible. I wish to acknowledge Juniper Gardens Children's Project, for their consistent support and commitment to the future of doctoral students. Learning from expert researchers who are dedicated to improving the community and the lives of children and families is a true gift. Juniper Gardens Children's Project has provided me with numerous learning opportunities vi regarding the research process, grant writing, and innovative interventions. By having opportunities at Juniper Gardens Children's project I have become a better student, researcher, and future scientist. Lastly, I would like to extend my appreciation to my family. My parents, Donald and Susan Keeney, have always encouraged me to reach my goals and drove me to become a critical thinker. Thank you for always answering my childhood questions and capitalizing on my curiosity. My interest in science started with both of you. To my husband, Eric Wallisch, there are not enough words to express my gratitude to you. You have always been there to help with grammar edits, coding issues, and to let me practice my presentations for you (even when you were really tired and my presentations were really boring). You have always encouraged me and given me a new perspective on research. Thanks for helping me get out of the house when I was stuck with writing, ideas, or solving problems. To my mother in-law, Martha Wallisch, I would like to acknowledge your detail-oriented and quick grammatical feedback, even when it was just hours before submitting the defense manuscript. My grammar is far improved and this manuscript includes far fewer commas because of you. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for all the individuals who supported me throughout this process. vii
Autism & developmental language impairments, 2020
Background and aims: The daily challenges of caring for a child with autism spectrum disorder affect many areas of everyday life and parental well-being, as well as parents' ability to manage the needs of the family and the child concerned. A better understanding of parents' perception of their child's characteristics can allow better support for them and individualize intervention protocols in a more accurate way. The main objective of this study is the evaluation of the perception of stress by parents of children with autism compared to parents of children with specific language impairment. Methods: The parents of 87 children aged between 2 and 6 years were included in this study, 34 children with a specific language impairment diagnosis and 53 children with an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis (ASD) or at risk of developing it. They were asked to complete a self-report on perceived stress and rating scales on adaptive/problematic behaviours, executive functions and sensory profile of the child. Results: The results reveal that parents of ASD children, compared to the control group, showed significantly higher levels of stress, mainly due to the difficulty of managing unexpected events, the feeling of loss of control over one's life and the fear of not being able to cope with the adversities they were experiences. The most critical area, both for ASD and control group, concern the executive function related to emotional reactions. Conclusions: Thus, we argue that the difficulties in self-control, sensory modulation and emotional regulation, represent an element of stress for parents of children with developmental disorders. Implications: Regarding the difficulties of children with ASD, supporting the ways in which caregivers adapt to the signals of children is an important strategy, which has now become a key element of treatments for autism mediated by parents.
Parental Constructions of Autism and the Impact of Autism on the Family: A Critical Exploration
2011
This thesis may be consulted by you, provided you comply with the provisions of the Act and the following conditions of use: x Any use you make of these documents or images must be for research or private study purposes only, and you may not make them available to any other person. x Authors control the copyright of their thesis. You will recognise the author's right to be identified as the author of this thesis, and due acknowledgement will be made to the author where appropriate. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the parents who participated in this study. This work would not have been possible without your involvement. Thank you for generously giving me your time and sharing your stories so openly in the interviews. My deepest gratitude to my primary supervisor Associate Professor Nicola Gavey, for her unwavering encouragement and guidance. Nicola, you have been the most consistent source of intellectual inspiration, patience, and wisdom throughout the years-I can never thank you enough. I am also grateful to my secondary supervisor Dr Claire Cartwright for her support, advice, thoughtfulness, and direction. Most of all, thank you to my family, friends and colleagues for their support, patience and belief in me. I could not have completed this project without you. To Karmyn and Anna-thank you for your friendship and for always being there for me when I needed it most. To Chris, Sarah, and Vicki-thank you for your camaraderie over the yearsthis has been invaluable. To Beryl-thank you for your support and wisdom. To Annette and Richard-much of this work is inspired by you. I would also like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the scholarships and awards I have received: Kate Edger Charitable Trust Doctoral Degree Award and Winifred Gimblett Scholarship. Finally, a huge thank you to Slava and Mike-it has been a long journey, and your love and encouragement have sustained me throughout.
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2014
Background: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit difficulties in regulating emotions and authors have called to study the specific processes underpinning emotion regulation (ER) in ASD. Yet, little observational research examined the strategies preschoolers with ASD use to regulate negative and positive emotions in the presence of their mothers and fathers. Methods: Forty preschoolers with ASD and 40 matched typically developing children and their mothers and fathers participated. Families were visited twice for identical battery of paradigms with mother or father. Parent-child interactions were coded for parent and child behaviors and children engaged in ER paradigms eliciting negative (fear) and positive (joy) emotions with each parent. ER paradigms were microcoded for negative and positive emotionality, ER strategies, and parent regulation facilitation. Results: During free play, mothers' and fathers' sensitivity and warm discipline were comparable across groups; however, children with ASD displayed lower positive engagement and higher withdrawal. During ER paradigms, children with ASD expressed less positive emotionality overall and more negative emotionality during fear with father. Children with ASD used more simple self-regulatory strategies, particularly during fear, but expressed comparable levels of assistance seeking behavior toward mother and father in negative and positive contexts. Parents of children with ASD used less complex regulation facilitation strategies, including cognitive reappraisal and emotional reframing, and employed simple tactics, such as physical comforting to manage fear and social gaze to maintain joy. Conclusion: Findings describe general and parent-and emotion-specific processes of child ER and parent regulation facilitation in preschoolers with ASD. Results underscore the ability of such children to seek parental assistance during moments of high arousal and the parents' sensitive adaptation to their children's needs. Reduced positive emotionality, rather than increased negative reactivity and self-regulatory efforts, emerges as the consistent element associated with ER processes in this group.