Social motivation by self- and caregiver-report: Reporter concordance and social correlates among autistic and neurotypical youth.
Ask verbally fluent autistic clients directly about their social motivation—their self-report adds predictive value beyond caregiver ratings.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Cary et al. (2024) asked 85 verbally fluent kids to fill out a short survey about wanting to talk and play with others.
Half of the kids had autism; half were neurotypical. Each child’s main caregiver filled out the same survey about the child.
The team then compared the two sets of answers and checked which report best predicted the child’s real-life social skills.
What they found
Youth and caregiver answers only matched some of the time—about 60 percent agreement.
The child’s own score, not the parent’s, predicted caregiver-rated social skills one year later.
This held true for both autistic and neurotypical kids, so self-report added new information beyond parent report.
How this fits with other research
Schroeder et al. (2014) saw the opposite pattern in adults with Williams syndrome: parent report beat self-report for predicting real social approaches. The difference is age and diagnosis—teens with autism may monitor their social wishes more accurately than adults with a different condition.
Cohen et al. (2018) also found poor agreement, but between parents and clinicians watching infants. Together these studies show that who you ask matters, and the best reporter can change with age and setting.
Healy et al. (2018) showed that verbally fluent autistic teens can describe their social thoughts when given visual aids. Emily’s team extends this idea by proving that even a quick written survey from the teen adds unique value.
Why it matters
If you assess social motivation in middle-school or high-school clients, give them the form themselves. A two-minute self-rating can flag social-drive levels that parents miss and can help you pick targets like conversation initiations or peer joining that fit the teen’s own view.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add a 5-item youth social-motivation questionnaire to your intake packet and graph the child’s score next to the parent’s.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Differences in social motivation underlie the core social-communication features of autism according to several theoretical models, with decreased social motivation among autistic youth relative to neurotypical peers. However, research on social motivation often relies on caregiver reports and rarely includes firsthand perspectives of children and adolescents with autism. Furthermore, social motivation is typically assumed to be constant across social settings when it may actually vary by social context. Among a sample of 58 verbally fluent youth (8-13 years old; 22 with autism, 36 neurotypical), we examined correspondence between youth and caregiver reports of social motivation with peers and with adults, as well as diagnostic group differences and associations with social outcomes. Results suggest youth and caregivers provide overlapping but distinct information. Autistic youth had lower levels of social motivation relative to neurotypical youth, and reported relatively consistent motivation toward peers and adults. Youth self- and caregiver-report were correlated for motivation toward adults, but not toward peers. Despite low correspondence between self- and caregiver-reported motivation toward peers, autistic youths' self-report corresponded to caregiver-reported social skills and difficulties whereas caregiver-report of peer motivation did not. For neurotypical youth, self- and caregiver-reported motivation toward adults was correlated, but motivation by both reporters was largely independent of broader social outcomes. Findings highlight the unique value of self-report among autistic children and adolescents, and warrant additional work exploring the development, structure, and correlates of social motivation among autistic and neurotypical youth.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2024 · doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2022.101079