Abstract
This study examined whether social and communicative skills would predict the ability to imitate conventional-interactive gestures (e.g., HAND WAVING for saying goodbye) in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Twenty 6- to 11-year-old Chinese-speaking children with ASD participated. Their social and communicative skills were assessed based on their caregivers’ ratings on their social and communication impairments and the observation of their gesture production in spontaneous interactions with the caregivers three months prior to the administration of the gesture imitation task. After controlling for gesture recognition and visual-motor coordination skills, the results of the partial correlation analyses have shown that there was significant association among the number of conventional-interactive gestures imitated accurately, the caregivers’ ratings, and the number of conventional-interactive gestures produced during interactions. Four regression analyses were thus conducted. We found the severity of social and communication impairments predicted the imitation of communicative gestures, with such relation mediated by the production of conventional-interactive gestures during the interactions. Overall, the results suggest that social and communication skills may play a causal role in imitation abilities in children with autism.
Highlights
Imitation normally emerges in early infancy [Meltzoff and Moore (1977), Heimann (1989); see review in Jones (2009)]
Children’s social and communication skills were measured by the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) and their production of conventional-interactive gestures during spontaneous interactions with the caregivers
In the fourth regression analysis, while we entered the number of conventional-interactive gestures produced and the SCQ score as the predictors in Step 1 and Step 2, respectively, and the number of conventional-interactive gestures accurately imitated as the dependent variable, we did not find a significant effect of the severity of social and communication impairments on the imitation of conventional-interactive gestures after controlling for the production of conventional-interactive gestures during the interactions. These findings suggest that the production of conventional-interactive gestures during the interactions completely mediated the relation between the severity of social and communication impairments and the imitation of communicative gestures
Summary
Imitation normally emerges in early infancy [Meltzoff and Moore (1977), Heimann (1989); see review in Jones (2009)]. Previous research has found that children with ASD show an imitation deficit, compared to children with developmental delay (matched for chronological and mental ages, and expressive language; Rogers et al, 1996) and typically developing children (matched for mental ages; Stone et al, 1997). Such deficit is found in spontaneous imitation as well as elicited imitation of gestures and actions in relation to objects [e.g., Smith and Bryson (2007), Rogers et al (2008), Vivanti et al (2008), and Gizzonio et al (2015)]. Some children with ASD may have better imitation abilities than others
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