Bidding on the go: Links between walking, social actions, and caregiver responses in infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder.
Parents of 18-month EL-ASD toddlers already answer simple approaches more than other parents, showing they naturally adapt to subtle social cues.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers filmed 18-month-old toddlers at home. Some toddlers had older siblings with autism. These babies are called "early-likely ASD" or EL-ASD.
The team coded every time a child walked toward a caregiver and made a social bid. They also coded how the adult answered. They wanted to see if adults treat EL-ASD toddlers differently than other toddlers.
What they found
All toddlers made the same number of walking bids. EL-ASD toddlers did not act less social.
Caregivers of EL-ASD toddlers answered simple face-to-face approaches more often than other caregivers. Every caregiver quickly answered bids that happened while the child was moving.
How this fits with other research
Lv et al. (2022) also watched caregivers at home. They found that adults who matched their gestures to the child’s got more social responses. Lee et al. (2022) adds that even without training, caregivers already fine-tune their timing to subtle cues like a simple approach.
Perez et al. (2015) and Anonymous (2018) showed that parents of minimally verbal children change their own behavior to handle sensory issues. Lee et al. (2022) extends this idea to social bids: parents again change their own behavior, this time by boosting responses to the easiest signals.
Vernon (2014) proved that brief adult smiles and eye contact can immediately raise child social acts. The new study shows parents of EL-ASD toddlers already supply these quick answers to simple approaches, giving clinicians a natural base to build on.
Why it matters
You can tell parents their child is already sending social signals while walking. Coach them to keep answering those simple face-to-face moments. No extra toys are needed—just quick, warm replies right after the child steps close. This builds on what many parents already do without thinking.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The development of walking is associated with a shift in how neurotypical infants initiate social interactions. Walking infants are more likely to locate objects in distant places, carry them, and then share those objects by approaching caregivers and using gestures to show or offer their discoveries (i.e., moving bids). The simultaneous organization of the behaviors necessary to generate moving bids requires the coordination of multiple skills-walking, fine motor skills, and gesturing. Infants with an elevated likelihood (EL) for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit differences and delays in each of these behaviors. This study investigated interconnections between infant walking, social actions, and caregiver responses in 18-month-old EL infants with diverse developmental outcomes (ASD, non-ASD language delay, no diagnosis). We observed 85 infant-caregiver dyads at home during everyday activities for 45 minutes and identified all times when infants walked, instances of walking paired with social action (i.e., approaching the caregiver, approaching while carrying an object, producing a moving bid), and whether caregivers responded to their infants' social actions. There were no group differences in infants' production of social actions. Caregiver responses, however, were more clearly modulated by outcome group. While all caregivers were similarly and highly likely to respond to moving bids, caregivers of EL-ASD infants were substantially more likely to respond when their infants simply approached them (with or without an object in hand). Taken together, this research underscores the complexity of EL infant-caregiver interactions and highlights the role that each partner plays in shaping how they unfold.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2022 · doi:10.1002/aur.2830