Pereira Brittany A, Hamsho Narmene, Susilo Annisha, Famolare Gianna M, Blacher Jan, Eisenhower Abbey
Department of Counseling and School Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston.
School of Psychology and Counseling, Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Sch Psychol. 2024 Jan;39(1):61-71. doi: 10.1037/spq0000556. Epub 2023 May 25.
Autistic students experience greater social difficulties and heightened internalizing behaviors (e.g., anxiety, depression, withdrawal) relative to their nonautistic peers, yet little is known about how these domains influence one another over time. This 1.5-year longitudinal study analyzed the associations between teacher-reported social skills and internalizing behaviors across three time points for 177 autistic students aged 4-7 years. Cross-lagged panel analyses indicated an association between earlier internalizing behaviors and later social skills for autistic students, whereby lower internalizing behaviors predicted greater growth in social skills from one school year to the next. These changes in social skills followed children across multiple teachers and classroom contexts. The opposite cross-lagged path was not supported as early social skills did not predict changes in internalizing behaviors over time. Internalizing behaviors showed similar associations with later social skills for autistic students regardless of cognitive ability, for those in general and special education classrooms, and for those whose teachers did and did not have autism-specific training. Findings suggest that promoting students' early emotional well-being and targeting internalizing behaviors may indirectly enable social development over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
与非自闭症同龄人相比，自闭症学生面临更大的社交困难，内化行为（如焦虑、抑郁、退缩）也更为严重，但对于这些领域如何随时间相互影响，我们知之甚少。这项为期1.5年的纵向研究分析了177名4至7岁自闭症学生在三个时间点上教师报告的社交技能与内化行为之间的关联。交叉滞后面板分析表明，自闭症学生早期的内化行为与后期的社交技能之间存在关联，即较低的内化行为预示着从一个学年到下一个学年社交技能会有更大的提升。这些社交技能的变化在多名教师和不同课堂环境中都跟踪到了孩子身上。相反的交叉滞后路径未得到支持，因为早期社交技能并不能预测内化行为随时间的变化。无论认知能力如何，对于普通教育和特殊教育课堂中的学生，以及教师有无自闭症专项培训的学生，内化行为与自闭症学生后期社交技能的关联都相似。研究结果表明，促进学生早期的情绪健康并针对内化行为，可能会随着时间的推移间接促进社交发展。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2024美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
