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

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Abstract

Background

Most studies examining parental behaviors of parents of young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) children have taken place in free play settings and have primarily focused on examining social behaviors. Motor skill-based play settings, which are distinctly different from free play settings, have not been explicitly studied as it relates to parental behaviors in these environments.

Aims

The purpose of this study was to examine parental behaviors of parents of children with and without ASD in two distinctly different play settings.

Methods

Parental behaviors of eighteen parents of children with (n = 9) and without ASD (n = 9) were examined by observation in different play settings (free play [a social-play/traditional play based setting] and a motor skill-based play setting). The examined parental behaviors included parental encouragement, negativity, sensitivity, detachment, and intrusiveness. A 2 × 2 (group × play setting) repeated measures of ANOVA was conducted to examine the main effect of group (TD vs ASD) and play setting (a social-play based setting and a motor skill-based setting) and the interaction effect between group and play setting on parental behaviors. Post-hoc independent t-tests between groups in each setting were conducted to follow-up on significant interactions indicated in the repeated measures of ANOVA

Results

The repeated measures ANOVA revealed that parental encouragement showed a significant interaction effect, suggesting that the effect of group on parental encouragement depended on play setting. A post-hoc analysis revealed that parents of children with ASD showed statistically significant lower parental encouragement in a motor skill-based play setting but not in a social-play based setting compared to parents of TD children. Moreover, there was a main effect of group (parents of children with ASD vs. parents of TD children) on parental intrusiveness indicating that the mean parental intrusiveness on children with ASD was significantly higher than parents of TD children across both play settings. There were no statistically significant main or interaction effects on the other parental behaviors (parental negativity, sensitivity, and detachment) between groups.

Conclusions and implications

The current study indicated parental encouragement differences between parents of children with ASD and parents of TD children varied based on the play setting. These results identify a need to examine parental behaviors, especially parental encouragement and parental intrusiveness across various types of play settings. Furthermore, as parents of children with ASD displayed lower parental encouragement in a motor skill-based play setting compared to parents of TD children, future studies are warranted to improve parental encouragement of parents of children with ASD in a motor skill-based play setting.

Section snippets

What this paper adds?

This study investigated similarities and differences between parental behaviors of parents of children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in a social-play based setting and a motor skill-based play setting. Various parental behaviors such as encouragement, negativity, sensitivity, detachment, and intrusiveness were examined in two distinctly different play settings. This study adds how parental behaviors of parents of children with ASD differ from parental behaviors of parents of

Method

18 parents/caregivers of children with and without ASD (ASD = 9 and TD = 9; children between the ages of 2 and 7 years) were recruited for this study. Descriptive information on participant characteristics is presented Table 1. All procedures for this study was approved by the University Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Results

Descriptive information about the play settings can be found in Table 2. There were statistically significant correlations within and between settings in respect to parental behaviors. Significant correlations of parental behaviors ranged from −.58 to −.76 in the social-play setting and -.68 to 0.82 in the motor skill based play setting. Parental encouragement was correlated at 0.47 and parental detachment was correlated at - 0.60 between settings. None of the other behaviors between settings

Discussion

The current study extends previous findings of parental behaviors of children with ASD by including a motor skill-based play setting which is distinctly different from a social-play based setting. In this study, various parental behaviors (i.e., parental encouragement, negativity, sensitivity, detachment, and intrusiveness) of parents of children with ASD and parental behaviors of parents of TD children were compared both in a social-play based setting and in a motor skill-based play setting.

Declaration of Competing Interest

None.

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