Mothers' and Children's Story-Telling: A Study of Dyads with Typically Developing Children and Children with ASD.
Parents of kids with ASD naturally use less causal and mental-state talk while storytelling—coach them to add more "why" and "what will happen" language.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched 30 moms tell a wordless picture book story to their child.
Fifteen kids had ASD. Fifteen were typically developing.
All pairs spoke English and lived in the same city.
Researchers counted every causal word (because, so) and mental-state word (think, feel) Mom used.
What they found
Moms of kids with ASD used half as many causal and mental-state words.
The gap was biggest when the child had weak theory-of-mind or low language scores.
Typical moms kept asking, "Why did he do that?" ASD moms stuck to simple labels.
How this fits with other research
Carr (1994) first showed that even bright autistic kids miss story characters' feelings. Bassett-Gunter et al. (2017) now show parents already sense that gap and talk more simply.
Walley et al. (2005) found autistic children's topic skills grow over a year, but theory-of-mind scores don't predict the gain. Together the papers hint that caregiver language, not child ToM alone, may drive progress.
Matson et al. (1999) saw no scaffolding difference between parents of kids with ID versus typical kids. The new ASD result seems to clash, but the tasks differ: referential talk versus mental-state talk. Parents adapt where they see need; they simply may not notice the subtle ToM gap in ASD.
Why it matters
You can teach parents to sprinkle "why" and "how do you think" into story time.
Two extra mental-state questions per page can add hundreds per month.
No extra clinic hours needed—just coach during bedtime books.
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Join Free →Hand the parent a Post-it with three prompts: "Why did he...?" "How does she feel?" "What might happen next?" and ask them to use each once during the next story.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The production of specific mental state terms types and functions by caregivers and their TD children and caregivers and their children with ASD were assessed in two contexts: a parent's story-telling task and a child's story-telling task. Caregivers of children with ASD produced less causal talk and proportionally less desire and cognitive talk than did caregivers of TD children. When focusing only on variation in our ASD sample, caregivers' and children's production of different mental state references varied with context and were predicted by different child characteristics (i.e., theory of mind, autism severity, language level). We conclude that caregivers are likely adjusting different aspects of mental state input depending on different aspects of child development although these adjustments may not always be optimal.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2017 · doi:10.1007/s10803-016-3022-z