Abstract
This study examined the sequential relationship between parent attentional cues and sustained attention to objects in young children with autism during a 20 min free-play interaction session. Twenty-five parent–child dyads with a preschool child with autism participated. Results indicated that (a) parent attentional cues that maintained the child’s focus of attention were more likely to support child sustained object attention than parent attentional cues that redirected the child from his or her focus of attention or introduced a new focus of attention (d = 4.46), and (b) parent attentional cues that included three or more parent behaviors were more likely to support child sustained object attention than parent attentional cues that included one or two parent behaviors (d = 1.03).
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Acknowledgments
This manuscript was prepared based on the doctoral dissertation by the first author. This research was conducted with a subset of participants from a larger research study by the second author that was supported in part by the National Institute for Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Grant R01CD03581.
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Brigham, N.B., Yoder, P.J., Jarzynka, M.A. et al. The Sequential Relationship Between Parent Attentional Cues and Sustained Attention to Objects in Young Children with Autism. J Autism Dev Disord 40, 200–208 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-009-0848-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-009-0848-7