Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Children with autism spectrum disorder perform comparably to their peers in a parent–child cooperation task

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Experimental Brain Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This study investigates whether and how parent’s cooperation affects child’s cooperation, and whether that differs between children with/without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The experiment involved a cooperative key-pressing task completed first by parent–parent dyads and then by parent–child dyads, meanwhile brain activity in the right frontal–parietal cortex of dyad partners was measured synchronously. The results showed the following: ASD children exhibited performance comparable to those of their peers, as was the level of brain synchronization with their parents, which was mainly due to parents with ASD children tending to adjust their own response patterns to match those of their children. These findings suggest that parents can somewhat actively mitigate the lower interpersonal synchronization ability of ASD children, in behavioral or/and neural level.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Source: BrainNet Toolkit (Xia et al. 2013)

Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

Datasets are available on request. The raw data and the data generated during analyses that support the findings of the study will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation, to any qualified researcher.

References

  • Abrahams BS, Geschwind DH (2008) Advances in autism genetics: on the threshold of a new neurobiology. Nat Rev Genet 9:341–355

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • American Psychiatric Association (2013) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.) Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association Publishing

  • Baker JM, Liu N, Cui X, Vrticka P, Saggar M (2016) Sex differences in neural and behavioral signatures of cooperation revealed by fNIRS hyperscanning. Sci Rep 4(259):1–9

    Google Scholar 

  • Bhat AN, Landa RJ, Galloway JC (2011) Current perspectives on motor functioning in infants, children, and adults with autism spectrum disorders. Phys Ther 91:1116–1129

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Capraro, Valerio (2019) The dual-process approach to human sociality: A review (2019) Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3409146 or http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3409146

  • Chang C, Glover GH (2010) Time–frequency dynamics of resting-state brain connectivity measured with fMRI. Neuroimage 50:81–98

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Culotta M (2019) Social cooperation skills and fNIRS-based cortical activation in children with and without autism spectrum disorder (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations Publishing

  • Decety J, Jackson PL, Sommerville JA, Chaminade T, Meltzoff AN (2004) The neural bases of cooperation and competition: an fMRI investigation. Neuroimage 23:744–751

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dziuk MA, Larson JCG, Apostu A, Mahone EM, Denckla MB, Mostofsky SH (2007) Dyspraxia in autism: association with motor, social, and communicative deficits. Dev Med Child Neurol 49:734–739

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fitzpatrick P, Romero V, Amaral JL, Duncan A, Barnard H, Richardson MJ, Schmidt RC (2017) Social motor synchronization: insights for understanding social behavior in autism. J Autism Dev Disord 47:2092–2107

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Freeman LM, Locke J, Rotheram-Fuller E, Mandell D (2017) Examining executive and social functioning in elementary-aged children with autism. J Autism Dev Disord 47:1890–1895

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Gallese V, Keysers C, Rizzolatti G (2004) A unifying view of the basis of social cognition. Trends Cogn Sci 8:396–403

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hoshi Y (2007) Functional near-infrared spectroscopy: current status and future prospects. J Biomed Opt 12:62106–62109

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hughes C (1996) Planning problems in autism at the level of motor control. J Autism Dev Disord 26:99–107

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Iacoboni M, Molnar-Szakacs I, Gallese V, Buccino G, Mazziotta JC, Rizzolatti G (2005) Grasping the intentions of others with one’s own mirror neuron system. PLoS Biol 3:e79

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Kaur M, Srinivasan S, Bhat AN (2018) Comparing motor performance, praxis, coordination, and interpersonal synchrony between children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Res Dev Disabil 72:79–95

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lambrechts G, Maljaars J, Boonen H, van Esch L, Van Leeuwen K, Noens I (2015) Parenting behavior in mothers of preschool children with ASD: Development of a self-report questionnaire. Autism Res Treat. https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/381236

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Li J, Zhu L, Gummerum M (2014) The relationship between moral judgment and cooperation in children with high-functioning autism. Sci Rep 4:4314

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Madarevic M, Esch L, Lambrechts G, Leeuwen K, Noens I (2020) Mothers of pre-schoolers with ASD: Parenting behaviours, parenting stress, and externalising behaviour problems https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/t7qdk

  • Marsh KL, Isenhower RW, Richardson MJ, Helt M, Verbalis AD, Schmidt RC, Fein D (2013) Autism and social disconnection in interpersonal rocking. Front Integr Neurosci 7:4

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Minshew NJ, Sung K, Jones BL, Furman JM (2004) Underdevelopment of the postural control system in autism. Neurology 63:2056–2061

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pan Y, Cheng X, Zhang Z, Li X, Hu Y (2017) Cooperation in lovers: An fNIRS-based hyperscanning study. Hum Brain Mapp 38:831–841

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rabinowitch TC, Knafo-Noam A (2015) Synchronous rhythmic interaction enhances children’s perceived similarity and closeness towards each other. PLoS ONE 10:e120878

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reindl V, Gerloff C, Scharke W, Konrad K (2018) Brain-to-brain synchrony in parent-child dyads and the relationship with emotion regulation revealed by fNIRS-based hyperscanning. Neuroimage 178:493–502

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Richardson MJ, Marsh KL, Baron RM (2007) Judging and actualizing intrapersonal and interpersonal affordances. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 33:845–859

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sebanz N, Bekkering H, Knoblich G (2006) Joint action: bodies and minds moving together. Trends Cogn Sci 10(2):70–76

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Siller M, Sigman M (2002) The behaviors of parents of children with autism predict the subsequent development of their children’s communication. J Autism Dev Disord 32:77–89

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tang Y, Liu X, Wang C, Cao M, Deng S, Du X, Li F (2020) Different strategies, distinguished cooperation efficiency, and brain synchronization for couples: An fNIRS-based hyperscanning study. Brain Behav 10 (9)

  • Tang Y, Yang Y, Chen L, Liu X, Deng S, Dai Y, Fan Y, Li F, Cui L (2022) Association of Prosocial Behavior Between Mothers and Their Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder: The Mediating Role of Maternal Parenting. J Autism Dev Disord. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05487-1

  • Uddin LQ, Iacoboni M, Lange C, Keenan JP (2007) The self and social cognition: The role of cortical midline structures and mirror neurons. Trends Cogn Sci 11:153–157

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wang Q, Han Z, Hu X, Feng S, Wang H, Liu T, Yi L (2019) Autism symptoms modulate interpersonal neural synchronization in children with autism spectrum disorder in cooperative interactions. Brain Topogr 33(1):112–122

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wiltermuth SS, Heath C (2009) Synchrony and cooperation. Psychol Sci 20:1–5

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Xia M, Wang J, He Y, (2013) BrainNet viewer: a network visualization tool for human brain connectomics. PLoS One 8 (7)

  • Xu C, Bryant DM, Reiss AL (2012) NIRS-based hyperscanning reveals increased interpersonal coherence in superior frontal cortex during cooperation. Neuroimage 59:2430–2437

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang M, Liu T, Pelowski M, Yu D (2017) Gender difference in spontaneous deception: a hyperscanning study using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Sci Rep 7:7508–7513

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Author notes

  1. Yun Tang and Chenbo Wang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, 650500, People’s Republic of China

    Yun Tang

  2. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatric Department and Child Primary Care Department, Brain and Behavioral Research Unit of Shanghai Institute for Pediatric Research, and MOE-Shanghai Key Laboratory for Children’s Environmental Health, Xinhua Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200092, People’s Republic of China

    Yun Tang, Xin Liu, Yuan Dai & Fĕi Li

  3. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, Institute of Brain and Education Innovation, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, People’s Republic of China

    Chenbo Wang & Lijuan Cui

  4. Department of Nursing, Children’s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400014, People’s Republic of China

    Fēi Li

Authors
  1. Yun Tang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Chenbo Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Xin Liu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Fēi Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Yuan Dai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Lijuan Cui
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Fĕi Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Lijuan Cui or Fĕi Li.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interests

The authors declare no conflict of interests.

Additional information

Communicated by Francesca Frassinetti.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 29 kb)

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tang, Y., Wang, C., Liu, X. et al. Children with autism spectrum disorder perform comparably to their peers in a parent–child cooperation task. Exp Brain Res 241, 1905–1917 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-023-06626-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-023-06626-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation