Measuring Communication and Interaction in Autism

This study is hoping to learn more about how autistic children who use minimal speech (i.e., mouth words) communicate during natural interactions at home with their caregivers. Specifically, we want to learn about moments where caregivers and their children are “in sync”, or are communicating back and forth, and the factors that are likely to promote being “in sync”. We believe that this work will help us better understand how social interaction can be shaped during everyday activities, play, or in therapy. This study involves assessments of social communication, language comprehension, autism traits, and play behaviors from caregivers and their children via telehealth in the home.

• Autistic children ages 4-6 years who use minimal spoken language

Caregivers will complete surveys of their child’s social and language skills, complete a developmental interview and engage in a play session with their child via telehealth. All activities will take approximately 1.5-2 hours to complete over one or more sessions.

Caregivers will receive $25 for participating and a summary of all language assessments completed.

Results from this project have implications for understanding development of social interaction skills in autism and for intervention strategies that utilize synchrony as an active ingredient.