Maternal communicative style in interaction with infant siblings of children with Autism
Quigley, JeanORCID: 0000-0003-0469-5199 and McNally, SinéadORCID: 0000-0002-9501-2535
(2013)
Maternal communicative style in interaction with infant siblings of children with Autism.
Language, Interaction and Acquisition, 4
(1).
pp. 51-69.
ISSN 1879-7865
Functional aspects of infant-directed-speech (IDS) in face-to-face interaction play a central role in
infant development (Venuti et al. 2012) and are important in shaping infant responsiveness (Goldstein
et al. 2003), yet have rarely been examined and there is little consensus on specific infant outcomes.
Infant siblings of children with autism are at increased risk of developing this disorder characterised
by socio-communicative impairments and present particular challenges for parents in interaction.
Using a prospective video analysis design, we had two objectives: to investigate maternal functional
speech styles in interaction with these infant siblings; and to analyse the relationship between
maternal functional style and infants’ cognitive, language and socio-communicative development. We
found significantly lower rates of maternal responsive-contingent utterances to the infant siblings and
significant associations between maternal IDS and infant test scores only for the typical dyads.
Metadata
Item Type:
Article (Published)
Refereed:
Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:
At-risk-for-autism siblings; Cognitive and language outcomes; Maternal infant-directed-speech; Infant responsiveness