Non-autistic Children Research Articles

Spatial Perspective Taking in Non-Autistic Children and Autistic Children: Do Social Processes Benefit or Obstruct?

ABSTRACT The present study investigated whether the presence of another person in a visuospatial perspective taking (VSPT) paradigm would influence the performance of non-autistic and autistic children. Experiment 1 tested non-autistic children aged 5–7 (N = 82, 42 girls) in a self-condition (pure spatial updating of self-mental rotation) and an other-condition (taking another agent’s perspective). Experiment 2 compared 18 autistic children (3 girls, aged 7.17–14.33 years old) and 22 mental ability-matched non-autistic peers (10 girls, M age = 6.82). Both experiments were conducted in mainland China with Chinese participants. Non-autistic children below 7 years of age and autistic children performed better in the self-condition than in the other-condition, especially when angular disparities were greater than 90°, while no such differences were observed in 7-year-old non-autistic children. The interaction between perspective and angular disparity indicated the interference of another agent’s presence in typical VSPT tasks from a developmental perspective. The results were discussed with regard to the nonsynchronous development of spatial and social ability involved in the VSPT paradigm and its implications for the purity of VSPT as a measure of spatial ability.

Seeing it in others versus doing it yourself: Social desirability judgements and conversation production data from autistic and non-autistic children.

During a conversation, on average, autistic individuals are often more likely than non-autistic people to provide an off-topic comment and/or to pause for longer before providing a response. One possible explanation for this is that autistic individuals prefer, or are more tolerant of, unconventional communication styles. To explore this possibility, we investigated whether autistic and non-autistic 9-13-year-olds find off-topic or delayed responding a deterrent to friendship or interaction. Participants listened to scripted conversations and then rated social desirability statements, such as 'I would enjoy chatting to the [target speaker]'. We also examined the prevalence of these behaviours in children's own conversational responses. We found that autistic children were just as likely as non-autistic children to dis-prefer unconventional conversational responding. Both groups indicated that they were less likely to want to be friends with the speaker, or to chat with them, when they provided off-topic or delayed responses. However, despite their judgements of others, the same autistic children were more likely to provide off-topic responses themselves than their non-autistic peers, as well as giving fewer on-topic responses which facilitate back-and-forth conversation. Overall, this is problematic for autistic children, as our findings suggest that the tendency to exhibit unconventional conversational behaviours will have negative social consequences, even when interacting with other autistic peers.

LEGO®-Based Therapy in School Settings for Social Behavior Stimulation in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Comparing Peer-Mediated and Expert Intervention

Background: LEGO®-based therapy is a social development protocol that uses LEGO® activities to support the development of a wide range of interaction skills, enhancing prosocial behaviors and mitigating the challenges associated with mental health difficulties and behavioral issues commonly observed in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Objectives: This study aimed to explore the effects of LEGO®-based therapy on the social behavior and mental health of children with ASD, comparing stimulation mediated by expert and stimulation mediated by non-autistic peers. This study was approved by the Ethical Committee at Mackenzie Presbyterian University, ensuring adherence to ethical standards throughout the research process. Methods: This study involved 18 children with ASD, levels 1 or 2, with an intelligence quotient (IQ) above 70, and three typically developing peers, intelligence quotient (IQ) above 80, aged between 5 and 8 years old, of both sexes. Participants were randomized into three groups for stimulation (stimulation mediated by expert, by a non-autistic peer and control group). The measures were the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (parent and teacher versions), the Inventory of Difficulties in Executive Functions, Regulation, and Aversion to Delay—Child Version, the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire, the Autism Behavior Checklist, and the Autistic Behavior Inventory. Results: After 14 sessions of 45 min in school settings, the participants of both groups (mediated by experts and non-autistic children) showed significant gains on social behavior. A statistically significant difference was observed between baseline sessions and probes (χ2 (5) = 25.905, p < 0.001). These gains were maintained in both follow-up points, 30 and 90 days after the completion of the stimulation sessions. Additionally, maladaptive behavior showed a significant decline when compared pre- and post-intervention. These improvements were sustained during follow-up assessments at 30 and 90 days. Conclusions: The results suggest that a structured intervention combined with peer-mediated stimulation may be an effective method for promoting adaptive and prosocial behaviors in children with ASD.

Cultural adaptation and preliminary validation of the Flexibility Scale for Spain.

Individuals exhibit varying degrees of flexibility depending on different characteristics, conditions, and diagnoses. The Flexibility Scale is a comprehensive informant-report measure used to assess multiple aspects of flexibility in autistic and non-autistic children and youth, with an emphasis on cognitive aspects. This tool has not been adapted nor validated for use in Spain. In this paper we aim to provide a culturally adapted and validated version of the Flexibility Scale for Spain. We detail the procedure followed by our research team to obtain a cultural adaptation of the scale for Spain, including forward and back translations, cognitive interviews, feedback from experts, and preliminary validation. Our participants in the validation process were 75 autistic and 39 typically developing children and adolescents between the ages of 6 and 17. We reached a culturally adapted and preliminary validated version of the Flexibility Scale for Spain (Escala de Flexibilidad). We make the scale available to researchers and practitioners working in Spain. This contributes to laying the groundwork for further testing and adaptations in Spanish-speaking countries and communities worldwide.

The Relation of Linguistic Awareness Skills to Reading and Spelling for Autistic and Non-Autistic Elementary School-Age Children.

For non-autistic children, it is well established that linguistic awareness skills support their success with reading and spelling. Few investigations have examined whether these same linguistic awareness skills play a role in literacy development for autistic elementary school-age children. This study serves as a first step in quantifying the phonological, prosodic, orthographic, and morphological awareness skills of autistic children; how these skills compare to those of non-autistic children; and their relation to literacy performance. We measured and compared the phonological, prosodic, orthographic, and morphological awareness skills of 18 autistic (with average nonverbal IQs) and 18 non-autistic elementary school-age children, matched in age, nonverbal IQ, and real-word reading. The relations between linguistic awareness and the children's word-level literacy and reading comprehension skills were examined, and we explored whether the magnitude of these relations was different for the two groups. Regression analyses indicated the relative contribution of linguistic awareness variables to performance on the literacy measures for the autistic children. The non-autistic children outperformed the autistic children on most linguistic awareness measures. There were moderate-to-strong relations between performances on the linguistic awareness and literacy measures for the non-autistic children, and most associations were not reliably different from those for the autistic children. Regression analyses indicate that the performance on specific linguistic awareness variables explains unique variance in autistic children's literacy performance. Although less developed than those of their non-autistic peers, the linguistic awareness skills of autistic elementary school-age children are important for successful reading and spelling.

Autistic children and their parents in the context of war: Preliminary findings.

While existing literature on the intersection of trauma and autism is limited, emerging evidence suggests heightened vulnerability of autistic children to the psychological consequences of traumatic events, including an elevated risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Additionally, parents of autistic children often experience elevated levels of negative emotional states, compared to parents of typically developing children. This study investigates the impact of terrorism and war on autistic and non-autistic children and their parents, presenting preliminary results from the initial data collection phase of a year-long longitudinal investigation of the experience of autistic children and their parents following Hamas' 7 October 2023 attack on Israel. Data gathered within 30days of the initial attack reveal that both autistic and non-autistic children exhibited clinically significant post-traumatic stress symptoms, with autistic children demonstrating a more pronounced manifestation. Moreover, parents of autistic children reported significantly higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress in the aftermath of the events, compared to an independent cohort of parents of autistic children assessed prior to the crisis. These results underscore the heightened susceptibility of autistic children to post-traumatic stress and the unique challenges confronted by their parents during times of conflict. The study highlights the imperative for tailored support services for autistic children and their families amidst traumatic incidents and stresses the need for further research in comparable contexts globally.

Uh and um in autism: The case of hesitation marker usage in Dutch-speaking autistic preschoolers.

English-speaking autistic children use the hesitation marker um less often than non-autistic children but use uh at a similar rate. It is unclear why this is the case. We employed a sample of Dutch-speaking children from the Preschool Brain Imaging and Behavior Project to examine hesitation markers in autistic and non-autistic preschoolers with the aim to 1) make a crosslinguistic comparison of hesitation marker usage and 2) examine hypotheses regarding the underlying linguistic mechanisms of hesitation markers: the symptom hypothesis and the signal hypothesis. We found initial group differences in all hesitation markers but these results were rendered insignificant after controlling for age, sex and nonverbal cognition. We found significant correlations between hesitation marker usage and expressive and receptive language, but not autism traits. Lastly, we show interesting cross-linguistic differences in hesitation marker usage between Dutch-speaking participants and previously described English-speaking participants, such as a preference for um over uh.

Disfluencies as a Window into Pragmatic Skills in Russian-Hebrew Bilingual Autistic and Non-Autistic Children

AbstractThere is little research on the production of speech disfluencies such as silent pauses, repetitions, self-corrections, and filled pauses (e.g., eh, em) in monolingual autistic children, and there is no data on this crucial part of speech production in bilingual autistic children. This study aims to address this gap by examining disfluency production in bilingual autistic and non-autistic children across two linguistically distinct languages, HL-Russian (the home language) and SL-Hebrew (the societal language). Fifty-one bilingual Russian-Hebrew-speaking autistic and non-autistic children aged 5–9 (autistic: n = 21; non-autistic: n = 30), matched for age and non-verbal intelligence, participated in picture-based story-generation tasks (LITMUS MAIN, Gagarina et al., ZAS Papers in Linguistics, 63:1–36, 2019). Audio recordings of narrative samples were transcribed, coded, and scored for eleven disfluency types using CLAN tools. The non-autistic group produced higher overall disfluency rate than the autistic group. The autistic group exhibited fewer filled and silent pauses than the non-autistic group in HL-Russian. Furthermore, non-autistic children manifested varied distribution of disfluency types across languages, while autistic children displayed more consistent patterns across languages. In summary, we replicated findings from previous research on monolinguals only partly, as no between-group difference in filled pauses was found in SL-Hebrew. Additionally, bilingual autistic children exhibited language-universal patterns of disfluency production, whereas their non-autistic peers displayed language-specific patterns.

Structural Learning in Autistic and Non-Autistic Children: A Replication and Extension.

The hippocampus is involved in many cognitive domains which are difficult for autistic individuals. Our previous study using a Structural Learning task that has been shown to depend on hippocampal functioning found that structural learning is diminished in autistic adults (Ring et al., 2017). The aim of the present study was to examine whether those results can be replicated in and extended to a sample of autistic and non-autistic children. We tested 43 autistic children and 38 non-autistic children with a subsample of 25 autistic and 28 non-autistic children who were well-matched on IQ. The children took part in a Simple Discrimination task which a simpler form of compound learning, and a Structural Learning task. We expected both groups to perform similarly in Simple Discrimination but reduced performance by the autism group on the Structural Learning task, which is what we found in both the well-matched and the non-matched sample. However, contrary to our prediction and the findings from autistic adults in our previous study, autistic children demonstrated a capacity for Structural Learning and showed an overall better performance in the tasks than was seen in earlier studies. We discuss developmental differences in autism as well as the role of executive functions that may have contributed to better than predicted task performance in this study.

A - 60 Validity of Caregiver Reported Behavioral Symptoms in Autism Spectrum Disorder Evaluations

Abstract Objective Informant report of a child’s behavior is an important component of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) evaluations. Informant-report measures with symptom validity scales are crucial to identifying invalid reporting of symptoms. This study examined the prevalence of, and characteristics associated with caregiver-report symptom validity (SVT) failure in an ASD evaluation clinic. Method Particpants were 212 youth, 6 to 18 years old (Mage = 11.5, 79.7% white, 91% non-Hispanic) whose caregivers completed a Conners, 3rd Edition, Adaptive Behavior Assessment System (ABAS) 2nd or 3rd Edition, and Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) as part of a multidisciplinary autism evaluation. Results Rates of symptom validity failure, specifically negative impression (z = −3.338, p < 0.001) and inconsistency (z = −2.051, p = 0.04) were significantly higher in this sample compared to the Conners, 3rd edition general population normative sample. Elevated negative impression index was associated with lower scores on the ABAS Social index (r = 0.152, p = 0.028) and higher scores on the CBCL Withdrawn scale (r = −0.285, p < 0.001). Those with an elevated negative impression index were more likely to not receive an ASD diagnosis [Χ2 = 8.116, p = 0.006]. Conclusion Caregiver report in children seeking diagnostic clarification for ASD is more likely to raise concerns for validity of reported behavioral symptoms than in the general population. Negative impression management is associated with lower likelihood of clinical ASD diagnosis, perhaps suggestive of caregiver motivation to obtain ASD diagnosis for non-autistic children. These findings support consideration of SVT failure when examining caregiver-reported behavioral symptoms.

Sensory responsivity and its relation to alexithymia, social processing and restricted interests and repetitive behaviour in autistic children

BackgroundAlthough noted in the earliest descriptions of autism, differences in sensory processing, including hyper-responsivity, hypo-responsivity and sensory seeking, have only been included as a diagnostic criterion more recently. Understanding how these unique features of sensory processing are related to the emotional and social aspects of autism is an ongoing question. Here we ask whether differences in sensory processing are associated with alexithymia, a trait characterised by an inability to identify and describe one’s feelings, which has a high incidence in autism. MethodParents of autistic children (n = 38) and parents of non-autistic children (n = 35) completed four standardized scales, the Short Sensory Profile-2, Social Responsiveness Scale-2, Social Communication Questionnaire, and the Children’s Alexithymia Measure. ResultsAcross all four scales the autistic children showed higher scores than the non-autistic children, with large effect sizes. Using the subscales of the SSP-2 we show that, for the autistic children but not for the non-autistic children, sensory hyper-responsivity is predictive of alexithymia, of core social features of autism and of restricted interests and repetitive behaviour (RIRB), after controlling for hypo-responsivity and sensory seeking. ConclusionsThese results add to a small but growing literature on the relationship between sensory processing and social and emotional behaviours in autistic children, and are discussed with reference to predictive coding and ‘sensory first’ accounts of autism. As sensory differences in autism impact children’s daily functioning and educational opportunities, understanding how these differences relate to social and emotional behaviour is important.

Eating Behaviors and Its Determinants: A Cross-Sectional Study In Autistic and Non-Autistic Children

Aim: Autism has increased globally, and it impacts nutrition. Factors related to mealtime behaviors of autistic children are understudied, especially in low-and-middle-income countries. Thus, this study aims to compare the eating and mealtime behaviours of autistic children (n=60) with a non-autistic sample (n=62) from Istanbul, Türkiye. Material and Methods: Parents were asked to complete a face-to-face questionnaire that included Children's Eating Behavior Inventory (CEBI) and anthropometric measures. MANCOVAs were used for comparing factors scores of CEBI between autistic and non-autistic participants by adjusting for potential covariates. Results: “Child’s Positive Eating Behavior” and “Adverse conditions in terms of child at the mealtime” (such as vomiting and choking) factors differed significantly depending on the autism status although negative eating behaviors during and after the mealtime were present in both groups. No statistically significant differences were found between the autism and comparison group on BMI percentile along with age and sex of the children. Conclusion: Our results highlight the need for evaluating the nutrition status of children at every age by not only using anthropometric measures and dietary intake, but also assessing eating behaviors. Families could be guided on regulating their children's nutritional behaviors by focusing on development of positive attitudes.

Mapping neural correlates of biological motion perception in autistic children using high-density diffuse optical tomography

BackgroundAutism spectrum disorder (ASD), a neurodevelopmental disorder defined by social communication deficits plus repetitive behaviors and restricted interests, currently affects 1/36 children in the general population. Recent advances in functional brain imaging show promise to provide useful biomarkers of ASD diagnostic likelihood, behavioral trait severity, and even response to therapeutic intervention. However, current gold-standard neuroimaging methods (e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI) are limited in naturalistic studies of brain function underlying ASD-associated behaviors due to the constrained imaging environment. Compared to fMRI, high-density diffuse optical tomography (HD-DOT), a non-invasive and minimally constraining optical neuroimaging modality, can overcome these limitations. Herein, we aimed to establish HD-DOT to evaluate brain function in autistic and non-autistic school-age children as they performed a biological motion perception task previously shown to yield results related to both ASD diagnosis and behavioral traits.MethodsWe used HD-DOT to image brain function in 46 ASD school-age participants and 49 non-autistic individuals (NAI) as they viewed dynamic point-light displays of coherent biological and scrambled motion. We assessed group-level cortical brain function with statistical parametric mapping. Additionally, we tested for brain-behavior associations with dimensional metrics of autism traits, as measured with the Social Responsiveness Scale-2, with hierarchical regression models.ResultsWe found that NAI participants presented stronger brain activity contrast (coherent > scrambled) than ASD children in cortical regions related to visual, motor, and social processing. Additionally, regression models revealed multiple cortical regions in autistic participants where brain function is significantly associated with dimensional measures of ASD traits.LimitationsOptical imaging methods are limited in depth sensitivity and so cannot measure brain activity within deep subcortical regions. However, the field of view of this HD-DOT system includes multiple brain regions previously implicated in both task-based and task-free studies on autism.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that HD-DOT is sensitive to brain function that both differentiates between NAI and ASD groups and correlates with dimensional measures of ASD traits. These findings establish HD-DOT as an effective tool for investigating brain function in autistic and non-autistic children. Moreover, this study established neural correlates related to biological motion perception and its association with dimensional measures of ASD traits.

Examining the relationship between functional connectivity and broader autistic traits in non-autistic children

ABSTRACT In the current study, we used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to examine functional connectivity (FC) in relation to measures of cognitive flexibility and autistic features in non-autistic children. Previous research suggests that disruptions in FC between brain regions may underlie the cognitive and behavioral traits of autism. Moreover, research has identified a broader autistic phenotype (BAP), which refers to a set of behavioral traits that fall along a continuum of behaviors typical for autism but which do not cross a clinically relevant threshold. Thus, by examining FC in relation to the BAP in non-autistic children, we can better understand the spectrum of behaviors related to this condition and their neural basis. Results indicated age-related differences in performance across three measures of cognitive flexibility, as expected given the rapid development of this skill within this time period. Additionally, results showed that across the flexibility tasks, measures of autistic traits were associated with weaker FC along the executive control network, though task performance was not associated with FC. These results suggest that behavioral scores may be less sensitive than neural measures to autistic traits. Further, these results corroborate the use of broader autistic traits and the BAP to better understand disruptions to neural function associated with autism.

Higher or lower? Interpersonal behavioral and neural synchronization of movement imitation in autistic children.

How well autistic children can imitate movements and how their brain activity synchronizes with the person they are imitating have been understudied. The current study adopted functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning and employed a task involving real interactions involving meaningful and meaningless movement imitation to explore the fundamental nature of imitation as a dynamic and interactive process. Experiment 1 explored meaningful and meaningless gesture imitation. The results revealed that autistic children exhibited lower imitation accuracy and behavioral synchrony than non-autistic children when imitating both meaningful and meaningless gestures. Specifically, compared to non-autistic children, autistic children displayed significantly higher interpersonal neural synchronization (INS) in the right inferior parietal lobule (r-IPL) (channel 12) when imitating meaningful gestures but lower INS when imitating meaningless gestures. Experiment 2 further investigated the imitation of four types of meaningless movements (orofacial movements, transitive movements, limb movements, and gestures). The results revealed that across all four movement types, autistic children exhibited significantly lower imitation accuracy, behavioral synchrony, and INS in the r-IPL (channel 12) than non-autistic children. This study is the first to identify INS as a biomarker of movement imitation difficulties in autistic individuals. Furthermore, an intra- and interindividual imitation mechanism model was proposed to explain the underlying causes of movement imitation difficulties in autistic individuals.

Developmental Impacts of Early Sensory Patterns on School-Age Adaptive, Maladaptive, and Participation Outcomes in Autistic and Non-autistic Children.

Early sensory differences may cascade into later social-communication difficulties in autism, yet their impacts on broader functional outcomes have remained understudied. This study aimed to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the longitudinal impacts of sensory patterns, including sensory hyperresponsiveness, hyporesponsiveness, and sensory repetitions/seeking behavior, on various school-age outcome domains among a community sample of children with autistic and non-autistic conditions. We prospectively followed 1,517 children with caregiver-reported sensory questionnaires across three timepoints from infancy to school age. A subsample (n = 389; 88 with reported autism diagnosis/concerns) was further assessed with adaptive, maladaptive and participation outcome measures at age 6-7. Structural equation modeling approaches were used to evaluate the multivariate associations between latent growth parameters (i.e., intercepts and slopes) of sensory patterns and school-age outcomes. Increasing sensory hyperresponsiveness was directly associated with poorer adaptive/maladaptive outcomes and indirectly with lower participation in activities with higher functional demands across settings at school age. Elevated sensory hyporesponsiveness was associated with lower adaptive functioning, more externalizing problems, and lower classroom participation. Trajectories of sensory patterns accounted for more unique variances in adaptive functioning and participation in daily life settings with higher functional and environmental demands among autistic children compared to their non-autistic peers.

The long-lasting benefits of pre-kindergarten education on autistic children's working memory development.

Working memory is an important skill for school success, and it involves holding information in our memory while using it to solve complex problems. However, autistic children often have difficulties with working memory tasks. Also, kindergarteners on the autism spectrum tend to be less school-ready compared with their peers. In addition, children from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to struggle more with working memory and school readiness skills. All preschool-age children on the autism spectrum in the United States are entitled to pre-kindergarten (pre-K) education. However, it is unclear whether attending pre-K helps with children's working memory development in the long run. This study tested whether attending pre-K benefits children's working memory development in the long run. It also tested whether pre-K is especially helpful for autistic children's working memory development. It was found that children who attended pre-K outperformed their peers who did not attend pre-K during the first 2 years of elementary school. However, after first grade, such benefits diminished. Importantly, autistic children who attended pre-K did not demonstrate advanced working memory immediately in kindergarten, but they started to outperform their autistic peers who did not attend pre-K during first grade to third grade. This finding highlights the importance of pre-K education for autistic children in particular. It is also important for educators and parents to understand autistic children's unique learning paths that may be different from non-autistic children. This article discusses specific ways for educators to take full advantage of the long-lasting benefits of pre-K education in autistic children's working memory development.

The impact of first impression on non-autistic children’s willingness to interact with autistic peers

The influence of first impressions on non-autistic children’s willingness to interact with autistic peers has not been studied rigorously with an experimental paradigm. Fifty-eight elementary non-autistic children participated in the study. A 2 (diagnosis: autistic children, non-autistic children) × 3 (social cues: face, face-voice, face-behavior) repeated measurement experimental design was conducted to answer the following question: to what extent are non-autistic children willing to interact with autistic peers when they acquire different kinds of social cues from a thin slice? The results showed that participants’ social interaction willingness toward autistic children was significantly lower than that of non-autistic children after short exposure to face and face-voice cues but marginally significantly higher than non-autistic peers after brief exposure to face-behavior cues. Among the three types of stimuli, face-behavior cues had the most significant negative influence on participants’ social interaction willingness toward autistic children, followed by face-voice cues, and the lowest was face cues. This finding implied that autistic children’s facial, vocal, and behavioral features all play roles in forming negative first impressions of them in non-autistic children. Guiding non-autistic children to embrace diversity could help remove the negative first impressions.

Code- and Meaning-related Emergent Literacy Skills and Joint Attention in Autistic and Non-Autistic Children.

Code- and meaning-related emergent literacy skills of autistic children were compared to those of non-autistic children who did not differ on age and full-scale IQ (FSIQ). The associations between joint attention skills and early literacy abilities were of interest. Seventeen autistic and 20 non-autistic children (48 to 72 months) participated. Parents completed a joint attention measure and children completed code- and meaning-related emergent literacy skills measures. Findings showed that autistic and non-autistic children did not differ on code-related emergent literacy skills, letter knowledge and phonological awareness, but autistic children scored lower on print conceptsand name writing. Autistic children also scored lower on meaning-related skills assessing the comprehensive and quality of oral narratives. FSIQ predicted print concept knowledge in all children. Receptive vocabulary was a significant predictor of meaning-related skills in autistic children and the quality of oral narratives in non-autisticchildren. Joint attention was also a significant predictor of oral narrative quality in autistic children. Recommendations for promoting emergent literacy skills using a strength-based approach are discussed.

Shared Book-Reading Amongst Parents of Autistic and Non-Autistic Children

ABSTRACT Shared book-reading (SBR) is a commonplace interaction in the home, yet for families with autistic children, little is known about the types of books parents read with their children, their frequency of reading these books, or how this routine relates to those in families with non-autistic children. This study thus compared the frequency of SBR amongst parents of autistic/non-autistic children, focusing on various book genres (narrative, informational, alphabet, wordless). We also took parents’ variables (age, education, self-efficacy) into consideration. Participants were 216 parents (183 mothers, 33 fathers): 74 with autistic children (Mage = 6.56, SD = 1.33), and 142 without an autism diagnosis (Mage = 4.79, SD = 1.30). Parents of autistic children read wordless picturebooks, narratives, and alphabet books significantly more frequently with their children than those without autism, with no significant differences in terms of overall frequency of SBR. Understanding how these variables relate and interact can facilitate the creation of programmes that more effectively support families’ promotion of children’s literacy development, especially children with autism.