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Social Referencing and Children with Autism

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Abstract

During social referencing, infants as young as 6 months of age look to others when confronted with unfamiliar or unexpected events in the environment and then respond to these events based on affective cues of the parent or caregiver (e.g., smiling and frowning). Social referencing is important for early communication and language development. Unfortunately, social referencing repertoires are limited or completely lacking in children with autism. Despite these documented social deficits, little research has focused on ameliorating social referencing deficits. The purpose of this paper is to present a behavior-analytic conceptualization of social referencing and the implications for ameliorating social referencing deficits of children with autism.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Nancy Hemmes and Bruce Brown for their contribution to an earlier version of this manuscript. We also greatly appreciate the thoughtful review provided by April Kisamore, who also drew our attention to the possible effects of motivating operations on social referencing and provided insightful suggestions for future research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alpine Learning Group, 777 Paramus Road, Paramus, NJ, 07652, USA

    Jaime A. DeQuinzio & Bridget A. Taylor

  2. Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Claire L. Poulson

  3. The Institute for Educational Achievement, New Milford, NJ, USA

    Dawn B. Townsend

Authors
  1. Jaime A. DeQuinzio
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  2. Claire L. Poulson
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  3. Dawn B. Townsend
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  4. Bridget A. Taylor
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Correspondence to Jaime A. DeQuinzio.

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DeQuinzio, J.A., Poulson, C.L., Townsend, D.B. et al. Social Referencing and Children with Autism. BEHAV ANALYST 39, 319–331 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-015-0046-1

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