Look at Mommy: An Exploratory Study of Attention-Related Communication in Mothers of Toddlers at Risk for Autism

ABSTRACT

Attentional difficulties are evident in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Accordingly, mothers of children with ASD may modify communication to direct their child’s attention, and this pattern may generalize to later-born children. This study examined patterns of child-directed communication in 11 mothers of 18-month-old toddlers at heightened risk (HR) for ASD and compared them to 11 low-risk (LR; no first- or second-degree relative with ASD) dyads. Naturalistic interactions at home were coded for communication that captured, directed, or maintained children’s attention and/or actions. Results provide preliminary evidence that LR mothers produce more utterances that involve labeling objects and gestures, while HR mothers use more suggestions. Thus, having an older child with ASD may influence maternal behavior with later-born children, even when those children do not themselves manifest obvious ASD symptomatology. Results highlight the need for further research on dyadic interactions between mothers and HR toddlers in larger samples.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Given the substantial individual variability in maternal production of the communicative behaviors of interest and the small sample size, profile analysis results were confirmed with nonparametric Mann-Whitney tests. Unless otherwise indicated, results did not differ.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grants from Autism Speaks and the National Institutes of Health [R01 HD41607 and R01 HD054979] to Jana M. Iverson, with additional support from HD055748 to N.J. Minshew. This research was completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. Portions of these data were presented at the 2009 International Meeting for Autism Research, Chicago, IL, and the 2011 Biennial Meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. We thank Susan Campbell, Celia Brownell, and Robert H. Wozniak for their invaluable comments during the project’s development and on the manuscript.