The relationships between mothers' communication characteristics and joint engagement, language and play skills in children with autism spectrum disorder

This study aimed to examine the relationship between mothers' behaviors supporting joint engagement during the free play with their young children having autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and communication characteristics regarding shared theme with their children, and the level of complexity of children's play, children's joint engagement, children's language and communication characteristics. To this end, 45 children aged between 2-7 diagnosed with ASD by state hospitals and attending to private special education and rehabilitation centers located in Ankara and their mothers were studied. Children and their mothers were video recorded during a 20 minute-free play, and these videos were used in the assessment. The Joint Engagement Rating Inventory (JERI) was utilized to assess children's joint engagement skills, mothers' behaviors supporting joint engagement, children's communication behaviors, and communication characteristics regarding shared theme during mother-child relationship. Videos were also used to assess the complexity level of children's play through the play assessment procedures. Test of Early Language Development (TELD) was employed to evaluate children's language skills by the researcher. Furthermore, Gilliam Autism Rating Scale was administrated to the participating children to evaluate them based on an autism index which was expected to be compatible with their medical diagnosis report. Data gathered from the study was analyzed by IBM SPSS 22.0 program. After conducting descriptive statistics to the variables of the study, the relationship between the variables was tested by Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient with bootstrap resampling with 1000 samples. Correlational analysis demonstrated the variables predicting the dependent variables. Hierarchical regression analysis was applied to test the predictive values of those variables on the dependent variables. Correlational analysis revealed significant and positive relationships between mothers' behaviors supporting joint engagement (supporting, following child's lead, highlighting symbols, affect) and communication characteristics regarding shared theme (the scope of shared theme, sustainability of shared theme, detailing shared theme, fluency and connectedness, routines and rituals), and the level of complexity of children's play, children's joint engagement, and children's language and communication skills in varying degrees. Hierarchical regression analysis showed related variables in those groups together, predict 64%, 88%, 65% and 91% of the level of children's play, children's joint engagement, children's language level and children's communication behaviors respectively.