Attachment in young children with autism spectrum disorders: an examination of separation and reunion behaviors with both mothers and fathers.
Toddlers with autism show reunion behaviors that hinge on parent gender and the child’s cognitive level, not just diagnosis.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched toddlers during the Strange Situation. They included kids with autism, kids with other delays, and typical kids. Each child spent two minutes away from mom, two minutes away from dad, and then reunited with each parent.
Trained observers wrote down every sign of comfort seeking, avoidance, or resistance. They also gave each child a short cognitive test. The goal was to see if diagnosis, mental age, or parent gender changed the way kids acted at reunion.
What they found
Kids with autism showed different reunion behaviors than typical kids. The gap got bigger when the child also had lower cognitive scores.
Fathers saw different behaviors than mothers. Some children sought comfort only from mom. Others went only to dad. A few stayed away from both.
How this fits with other research
Lord et al. (1997) saw no average difference between autistic and typical preschoolers. The new study agrees, but adds that the story changes once you look at dads and mental age.
Esposito et al. (2014) found that high-risk toddlers cry differently during separation. Koegel et al. (2014) show the reunion side: the same kids may look flat or odd when they greet the parent again.
Kangas et al. (2011) reported secure attachment rates like typical infants. Koegel et al. (2014) move the lens to toddlers and say "secure" can look different with dad or with lower cognition.
Why it matters
If you run the Strange Situation, score mom and dad separately. Note the child’s mental age. A low score may explain why reunion looks cool or avoidant. Don’t label the bond insecure until you have both parents and the child’s developmental level in view.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add a dad session to your Strange-Situation protocol and write separate notes for each parent before you score attachment.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Most studies examining attachment in children with autism spectrum disorder used a strange situation paradigm and have found few significant group differences between children with autism spectrum disorder and comparisons. However, these studies predominantly used formal attachment categorizations (e.g. secure vs insecure), a method that may obscure more nuanced differences between groups. In this study, we utilized a qualitative approach to examine attachment behaviors in young children with autism spectrum disorder. Based on the results of previous studies, we looked at (a) parental gender, (b) child diagnosis, and (c) child cognitive skills to examine the role of these three factors on attachment behaviors elicited during a modified strange situation paradigm. Participants were 2- to 3-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (n = 166) or nonspectrum disorders (n = 45), as well as a sample of 56 children with typical development. Over the three groups, 393 observations of a modified strange situation paradigm with mothers and 127 observations with fathers were collected. Parental gender, child diagnosis, and child cognitive skills each had significant main effects on attachment behaviors elicited during reunion. These results underscore the importance of the father's role in parent-child interactions, with implications for both clinical and research efforts. In addition, the results emphasize the importance of considering a child's diagnosis and cognitive skills when examining attachment behaviors.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2014 · doi:10.1177/1362361312467235