Interaction Behaviors of Bilingual Parents With Their Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol. 2018;47(sup1):S321-S328. doi: 10.1080/15374416.2017.1286592. Epub 2017 Mar 21.

Abstract

Given concerns that bilingual exposure might confuse children with disabilities-including autism spectrum disorder (ASD)-bilingual parents may restrict exposure to one language, often the community-dominant language. We investigated a potential consequence of this decision; the possibility that non-native language use might influence parental communicative behaviors during interaction with the child. We recruited 39 parent-child dyads, each with a young child with ASD (mostly boys) and parent/carer (mostly mothers). Parents were either monolingual speakers of community-dominant English (n = 20) or bilingual with English as the second language (n = 19). We confirmed our assumption that the latter group would have significantly poorer non-native English language via standardized assessment of expressive vocabulary, and ensured children were matched on age, ASD symptoms, and developmental level. We sampled parent-child interaction-including in each of bilinguals' native and non-native languages-and coded parents' amount and complexity of speech, communicative synchrony, and imitations and expansions of their child's speech. Few differences presented across bilingual parents' native versus non-native language samples, but this group showed reduced synchrony and use of expansions compared to monolinguals. Further, bilinguals' English-language knowledge was associated with self-reported comfort using this language and with two coded interaction measures. These empirical data only partially support qualitative accounts that non-native language use may influence bilingual parents' interaction behaviors with their young children. With growing rates of ASD diagnosis and increasing cultural/linguistic diversity around the world, further dedicated clinical and experimental attention to this issue is clearly warranted.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Autism Spectrum Disorder / diagnosis
  • Autism Spectrum Disorder / psychology*
  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Cohort Studies
  • Empirical Research*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Multilingualism*
  • Parent-Child Relations*
  • Parents / psychology*