Student-teacher relationships of children with autism spectrum disorder: Distinct contributions of language domains.
Melanie Feldman, Melissa Maye, Sarah Levinson and 3 others
PMID 30959432WHAT IT FOUND
For children with autism, pragmatic language skills predicted how close teachers felt to them at the start of the school year, but semantic and syntactic skills did not.
Teacher experience and classroom placement also influenced closeness. No language domain predicted changes in relationship quality over the year.
Key findings
01Pragmatic language skills were the only language domain associated with concurrent student-teacher closeness; semantic and syntactic skills were not.
02Classroom placement moderated the link between semantic skills and closeness: in general education, children with stronger semantic skills had closer relationships, while in special education, closeness was similar regardless of semantic level.
03No language domain, teacher experience, or classroom factor predicted change in student-teacher closeness or conflict over the school year after controlling for baseline ratings.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study excluded children with moderate-to-severe intellectual disabilities and focused on those with at least some functional language, so results may not apply to non-verbal or severely impaired children. Language skills were measured only once at the beginning of the year, so changes in language ability over time were not captured. The study did not account for other factors known to affect teacher-student relationships, such as ASD symptom severity, behavior problems, or social skills. Findings are based on teacher self-reports of relationship quality, which may be subjective.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that improving semantic or syntactic language skills will directly increase teacher closeness in all settings. The study found that semantic skills only predicted closeness in general education classrooms, and no language domain predicted changes in relationship quality over time.