Brief Report: Collateral Joint Engagement During a Playdate Intervention for Children with and at Risk for Autism.
Brief parent-run playdates that prompt requesting can raise joint engagement for some preschoolers with autism.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Three preschoolers with or at risk for autism joined short parent-run playdates at home.
Parents learned to weave simple requesting opportunities into board games and toy play.
Researchers watched each child before, during, and after the playdates to see if joint engagement changed.
What they found
Two children stayed in shared play longer and looked or pointed with the adult more often.
One child showed mixed ups and downs, so results were not the same for everyone.
Overall, the playdate package helped some, but not all, kids boost joint engagement.
How this fits with other research
Chiang et al. (2016) also used caregiver play with toddlers and saw only small gains at a three-month check. Their older quasi-experiment lines up with the mixed picture here.
Panganiban et al. (2022) moved the same goal into the classroom. Teachers slipped JASPER play cues into small-group lessons and saw steadier peer engagement. The new home playdate data extend that idea to parents and living-room toys.
Glugatch et al. (2021) trained brothers and sisters instead of parents. All siblings quickly learned play tactics and their preschoolers with autism played back more. Together the papers show the partner can be parent, teacher, or sibling; the key is coached naturalistic play.
Why it matters
If you serve preschoolers with autism, coach caregivers to build quick request moments into everyday games. Start with one playdate, one clear prompt, and measure joint looks or shared smiles. If the child responds, keep going; if not, tweak the game or partner just like the single-case data suggest.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Joint engagement involves a child coordinating their attention between a person and a shared event. Children with autism present with impaired joint engagement. Playdates are a common way that children socially engage yet have been largely overlooked in the social skills literature. Requesting skills have been conceptualized as pivotal, producing collateral effects. In the current study, we conducted a secondary analysis of a single-case design that evaluated a parent-implemented playdate intervention focused on supporting children and peers to request and respond to one another during games. We examined the collateral effects of the playdate intervention on joint engagement. Two children demonstrated gains in joint engagement with a peer, and the third exhibited variable changes. Implications for future research are discussed.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2021 · doi:10.1007/s10803-018-3517-x