Interactional Synchrony and Its Association with Social and Communication Ability in Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Zampella, Casey J.; Csumitta, Kelsey D.; Simon, Emily; Bennetto, Loisa

doi:10.1007/s10803-020-04412-8

Original Paper
Published: 17 February 2020

Interactional Synchrony and Its Association with Social and Communication Ability in Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Casey J. Zampella ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7973-8520¹^nAff2,
Kelsey D. Csumitta¹^nAff3,
Emily Simon¹^nAff4 &
Loisa Bennetto¹

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders volume 50, pages 3195–3206 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Social partners tend to coordinate their behaviors in time. This “interactional synchrony” is associated with a host of positive social outcomes, making it ripe for study in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Twenty children with ASD and 17 typically developing (TD) children participated in conversations with familiar and unfamiliar adults. Conversations were rated for movement synchrony and verbal synchrony, and mothers completed measures regarding children’s everyday social and communication skills. Children with ASD exhibited less interactional synchrony, with familiar and unfamiliar partners, than TD peers. Beyond group-level differences, interactional synchrony negatively correlated with autism symptom severity, and predicted dimensional scores on established social and communication measures. Results suggest that disrupted interactional synchrony may be associated with impaired social functioning in ASD.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01 DC009439). We would like to thank the families that participated. We would also like to thank Paul Allen, Laura Soskey Cubit, Jessica Keith, Kim Schauder, and our undergraduate research assistants for their many invaluable contributions, and Ashley de Marchena and Heather Nuske for feedback on manuscript drafts.

Author information

Casey J. Zampella
Present address: Center for Autism Research, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Kelsey D. Csumitta
Present address: Department of Psychology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Emily Simon
Present address: Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH, USA

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Department of Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA
Casey J. Zampella, Kelsey D. Csumitta, Emily Simon & Loisa Bennetto

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Casey J. Zampella
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Kelsey D. Csumitta
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Emily Simon
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Loisa Bennetto
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Correspondence to Casey J. Zampella.

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Zampella, C.J., Csumitta, K.D., Simon, E. et al. Interactional Synchrony and Its Association with Social and Communication Ability in Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 50, 3195–3206 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04412-8

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Published: 17 February 2020
Issue Date: September 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04412-8

Keywords

Interactional synchrony
Social reciprocity
Nonverbal communication
Movement
Verbal communication