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Measuring Parent–Child Transactions for Early Identification of Young Autistic Children

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Abstract

This study explored the salient characteristics of transactions within parent–child engagement and investigated relationships between transactional characteristics and future identification of autism. The main aims of the study were to (1) examine if parents/children and their initial behaviors impact the length of transaction; (2) determine miscue differences among parents and children; and (3) determine if transactional characteristics are predictive of autism at preschool age.The study sample was drawn from extant data of a parent-mediated intervention for young children showing early sings of autism. Thirty parent–child dyad videos were randomly selected and coded for transactions. Statistical analyses were applied to examine the study aims and to perform post-hoc analyses.The length of transaction increased when children initiated with a look cue. Parents displayed a higher proportion of miscues and greater variance in their miscue behavior than their children. Neither the length of transaction nor the proportion of child miscues at 1-year of age predicted an autism diagnosis at preschool age. Post-hoc analyses revealed that girls with high variance of transaction length at 1-year of age, had a lower likelihood of showing autism traits at preschool age. Sustained transactions were more likely when children initiated engagement by looking. Early transactional characteristics were associated with later autism identification among girls, namely longer median transaction length with lower variance of transaction length. This transaction profile is believed to represent high fixation on topics with less ability to explore varied topics.

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Funding

The parent project providing access to data used for the current study was supported by a U.S. Department of Education through grant #R324A100305 to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (PIs: Linda Watson and Elizabeth Crais), a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Junior Faculty Award, and an Organization for Autism Research Graduate Student Research Grant to Sallie W. Nowell. The current study also was partially supported by the Royster Society of Fellows at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Institute of Education Sciences and the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs Doctoral Leadership Grant #H325D160060, which both provided support for Thelma E. Uzonyi. This study’s contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Autism Services, Science and Innovation, Kennedy Krieger Institute, 3901 Greenspring Avenue, Baltimore, MD, 21211, USA

    Thelma E. Uzonyi

  2. Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Department of Allied Health Sciences, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Elizabeth R. Crais & Linda R. Watson

  3. Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Sallie W. Nowell

  4. Mrs. T.H. Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Grace T. Baranek

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  1. Thelma E. Uzonyi
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  2. Elizabeth R. Crais
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Contributions

Thelma E. Uzonyi was the primary investigator in the current study and responsible for study development, methods, implementation, results, and original draft preparation. The remaining four authors made important contributions as supervisors, and revisions/input in study development, methods, implementation, results, and draft edits.

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Correspondence to Thelma E. Uzonyi.

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Conflict of interest

Elizabeth R. Crais, Linda R. Watson, and Grace T. Baranek were authors of the First Year Inventory version 2.0 and the experimental Adapted Responsive Teaching intervention used in the parent project. Thelma E. Uzonyi was the author of the Transactional Engagement Coding-Extended used with the extant data in the current study, and the coding manual can be obtained by contacting this author. The authors have no other competing interests associated with this publication and there were no conditions attached to the financial support for this work that could have influenced its outcome.

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Uzonyi, T.E., Crais, E.R., Watson, L.R. et al. Measuring Parent–Child Transactions for Early Identification of Young Autistic Children. J Autism Dev Disord (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-024-06281-x

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