Segers Julie, van Esch Lotte, Mađarević Melinda, Moerman Floor, Roeyers Herbert, Steyaert Jean, Warreyn Petra, Noens Ilse
Parenting and Special Education Research Unit, Faculty of Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Leuven Autism Research (LAuRes), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Parenting and Special Education Research Unit, Faculty of Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Leuven Autism Research (LAuRes), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Infant Behav Dev. 2025 Mar;78:102030. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102030. Epub 2025 Jan 27.
Parent-child interactions are important for children's emotional and behavioral development. In autism research, parent-child interactions are typically observed during free play. Yet, studies outside the autism field underscored the importance of observing parent-child interactions during other contexts, as parents' behaviors may depend on the context, and different contexts may reveal different relationships between parents' and children's behaviors. Therefore, we observed interactions between 102 mothers and their 24-month-old children at elevated likelihood of autism during two scenarios: free play and goal-directed play. Participating children had an older autistic sibling (n = 68) or were born very preterm (born before 30 weeks; n = 34). We found that mothers adapt their behaviors to contextual cues, which supports and expands on previous findings regarding older autistic children, and children without autism. Furthermore, as expected, the relationship between mothers' and children's outings of negative affect only became apparent during the goal-directed play scenario. A relationship between mothers' and children's outings of positive affect was found in both scenarios, thus regardless of the context. Parent-reported emotional and behavioral difficulties of children were not related to maternal behaviors during either context, nor to fluctuations in maternal behaviors across contexts. This contrasts with studies with older children, which did find such relationships. Therefore, our findings suggest that predictable patterns might not yet be visible when children's emotional and behavioral difficulties first become apparent.
亲子互动对儿童的情感和行为发展至关重要。在自闭症研究中，通常在自由玩耍期间观察亲子互动。然而，自闭症领域之外的研究强调了在其他情境下观察亲子互动的重要性，因为父母的行为可能取决于情境，并且不同的情境可能揭示父母与孩子行为之间的不同关系。因此，我们观察了102位母亲与其24个月大、患自闭症可能性较高的孩子在两种情境下的互动：自由玩耍和目标导向性玩耍。参与研究的孩子有一个年龄较大的自闭症兄弟姐妹（n = 68）或为极早产儿（出生于30周之前；n = 34）。我们发现母亲会根据情境线索调整自己的行为，这支持并扩展了先前关于年龄较大的自闭症儿童和无自闭症儿童的研究结果。此外不出所料，母亲与孩子负面情绪的表露之间的关系仅在目标导向性玩耍情境中才变得明显。在两种情境中均发现了母亲与孩子积极情绪表露之间的关系，因此与情境无关。父母报告的孩子的情感和行为困难与两种情境下的母亲行为均无关，也与母亲行为在不同情境中的波动无关。这与针对年龄较大儿童的研究形成对比，那些研究确实发现了此类关系。因此，我们的研究结果表明，当孩子的情感和行为困难首次显现时，可预测的模式可能尚不明显。
