Interactional Synchrony and Its Association with Social and Communication Ability in Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Casey J Zampella, Kelsey D Csumitta, Emily Simon and 1 others
PMID 32065341WHAT IT FOUND
Children with autism were rated as less coordinated in movement and conversation with both mothers and unfamiliar adults.
Movement timing tracked mothers' ratings of social and communication skills in the combined sample. This is an observational comparison, not a treatment study.
Key findings
01Children with autism spectrum disorder were rated as having less movement synchrony than typically developing children, and the difference was similar with mothers and unfamiliar research assistants.
02Children with autism spectrum disorder were also rated as having less verbal synchrony than typically developing children, with no significant effect of familiarity.
03Movement synchrony predicted parent-reported social and communication skills overall, but not within the autism group alone.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Small sample, so group differences and correlations should be treated as preliminary. The sample was restricted to older children and adolescents with fluent English and Full Scale IQ scores of 80 or above, so results may not apply to younger children, those with lower language skills, or more significant autism symptoms. Very few females and a broad age range were included, and the study was underpowered to test sex or age differences. The study did not test any treatment, so it cannot show that changing synchrony would improve social communication. One unfamiliar interaction was not recorded because of equipment failure, so some analyses did not include all 37 children. The unfamiliar research assistants knew the study objectives, which could have influenced their behavior, although results were similar across research assistants and mothers. The conversation task was more structured than many everyday social encounters, so the lack of familiarity effect may not reflect all real-world contexts.
Declared interests
All authors declared no conflict of interest. The supplied text does not report a funding source.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that improving movement synchrony will improve social communication. The study was observational, did not test treatment, and the link between movement synchrony and parent-reported skills was not significant within the autism group alone.