Respiratory sinus arrhythmia, parenting, and externalizing behavior in children with autism spectrum disorder.
Jason K Baker, Rachel M Fenning, Stephen A Erath and 5 others
PMID 31122030WHAT IT FOUND
In children with autism, a larger stress-related drop in heart-rate variability was linked to more behavior problems when parents were more negative, but fewer problems when parents were less negative.
Resting heart-rate variability and positive parenting did not show these links.
Key findings
01Children with higher RSA reactivity showed more externalizing behavior when negative parenting was high and less externalizing behavior when negative parenting was low.
02Baseline RSA and RSA reactivity were not significantly related to externalizing behavior, and RSA reactivity did not interact with positive parenting.
03Negative parenting was related to higher externalizing behavior only for children with higher RSA reactivity.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Sixteen of the 77 children had no usable RSA data, and missingness was more common in boys and in children with higher autism symptom scores. The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show that parenting or RSA reactivity caused behavior problems. The analysed sample was 61 children, and the paper notes that replication would strengthen conclusions. Children with significant motor impairment or known genetic disorders were excluded, so the findings may not apply to those children. The paper did not control for height, weight, or body mass index. The paper did not measure motor skills, which could have affected task performance. Five children did not meet ADOS-2 criteria but were retained after clinical best estimate.
Declared interests
No author conflict-of-interest statement is included in the supplied text. The publication types list research support from N.I.H., extramural.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read higher RSA reactivity as always harmful. In this study, higher RSA reactivity was linked to more externalizing behavior only when negative parenting was high, and to less externalizing behavior when negative parenting was low.