Symposium
Chairs: Jacqueline Nadel and Tiffany Field
Discussant: Regina Yando
Data on imitation and social communication skills have been controversial.Recent evidence suggests that preschool children with autism can: 1) increasetheir proximal and distal social behaviors following imitation sessions; 2)that these increases in social behavior only happen when the childrenrecognizethey are being imitated; 3) that greater increases in social behavior occurwhen the children are exposed to multiples sessions at short intervals (dailyor every other day). Other data are presented on the use of imitation inchildren with Autism compared to children with Down Syndrome. Children withDown Syndrome tend to show an imitation development that is similar to theimitation development of typical children, though slower and more variable.Theonset of other communication skills in children with autism, such ascommunicative pointings and their evolution over time, support the idea thatthe nature of communicative impairment change in the course of development.More generally, microgenetic as well as macrogenetic changes in communicativebehavior deeply rely on theseverity of the autistic symptoms.
Details of individual items:
paper
The extent to which low-functioning and nonverbal children with autismperceivesocial contingency and respond to social contingency has not yet been fullyestablished. It is however a determinant aspect of communicative skill. Weexplored this question using a modified 3mn X 3 episodes still face procedure(still Face-interaction-still Face) with a stranger. In the pilot French studywith 8 low-functioning children with autism, results demonstrate that,althoughthey showed no concern with the still stranger during the first still face,allchildren initiated attempts to reestablish contact during the second stillfaceand reacted negatively to the adult's persistently non-contingent behavior.TheAmerican study replicated the initial findings, adding a control situationwhere the interaction episode was not imitative.Mixing the French and the American populations for the imitative condition, wecomputed the number of switches between looking at the partner's object andlooking at one's own object, as an indice of imitation recognition. One thirdof the children with autism were clearly not imitation recognizers.Finally, we distinguished 3 groups of children: group 1, composed of childrenwho met an interactive but not imitative stranger; group 2, composed ofimitation recognizers who met an imitative stranger, group 3, composed ofimitation non recognizers who met an imitative stranger. Among other dependentvariables, we used the frequency of touch the adult as an indice of positivesocial interest. Results showed that, although similar in the 3 groups duringthe interactive episode, the frequency of touch during the still face thatfollowed the interactive episode differed significantly for the 3 groups:therewas zero touch for group 3, and nearly zero for group 1. By contrast, theimitation recognizers touched the adult several times. Touch appears thusto bea discriminative indice of social interest and a privileged means of socialinitiations in low-functioning nonverbal children with autism.The results of the 3 studies suggest that imitation is a strong elicitor ofexpectancies for social contingency. However the social power of imitation isrestricted to the cases of imitation recognition. These findings underline therole of imitation recognition in the development of social contingencydetection.
paper
The still-face imitation paradigm designed by Jacqueline Nadel has beenused effectively with children diagnosed with autism. In at least twostudies, children after being exposed to a still-face followed by animitative session followed by a second still-face and a spontaneousinteraction with an adult were showing more proximity-seeking behaviorsin the second still-face condition with the adult. In the present studythis paradigm was used repeatedly for three sessions with a group of tenpreschool aged children with autism. Children were taken to a playroomwhere two identical sets of toys were available on the table. The adultfirst posed a still-face and appeared statue-like for a two-minuteperiod, then proceeded to imitate the child's every behavior usingidentical toys during the second two-minutes, then returned to astill-face position on a couch for the third two-minute period, andfinally, for the fourth two-minute period engaged in spontaneous,contingently-responsive but not imitative play. After three sessions ofthis paradigm, the children with autism showed the following increasesin social behavior: 1) during the imitative play situation they wereplaying alone less frequently, they were smiling more frequently,engaging in reciprocal imitation more frequently and initiated novelactivities with the objects that had been introduced by the examiner inprevious sessions; 2) by the third session, the behaviors that changedduring the second still-face situation were less play with objects andmore touching the examiner; and 3) by the third session, the followingbehaviors occurred more often during the spontaneous play situationincluding more smiling, more proximity-seeking behavior, and morepretend play. These data suggest that this paradigm may be a very effectiveintervention for children with autism. Greater social relatedness couldbe seen over time including greater smiling, proximity-seeking andtouching. In addition, more sophisticated play behavior was notedincluding recalling novel activities with the toys that had beenintroduced by the examiner in previous sessions, more reciprocalimitation and more pretend play.
paper
This paper will discuss and compare imitation among young children with autism and infants with Down syndrome. A basic problem with all theories assuming an early imitation deficit in autism is that there exist no studies on children with autism younger than one year, although studies on somewhat older subjects indicate that children with autism do have some problems with imitation. A theory of the role of imitation in autism must be able to incorporate children with a late onset of autism. Thus, since there is probably more than one kind of autism there should also be more than one role given to an early imitation deficit. The first alternative indicate that the child is born with a dialogical mind which enables him or her to display neonatal imitation, to engage in an immediate dialogical 'dance' and to show primary intersubjectivity. It is not possible to distinguish this child - who will later develop autism - from a typically developing child during these first weeks or months of life. However, due to a faulty development of the nervous system (e.g.: genetic or perinatal factors) some paths of normal brain development is arrested and a deviant route is taken. From this point in time and onwards, the child will show an increasing pathological development. As stated elsewhere (Heimann & Ullstadius, 1999) a child that develops autism according to this scenario will probably not start to display deviant imitation until he or she is close to reach the level of secondary intersubjectivity (somewhere around 7 to 9 months).The second possible path to autism suggests that the child's central nervous system is different already from birth. This is the hypothesis suggested by Rogers and Pennington (1991). The child is not able to enter into reciprocal interactions or to display neonatal imitation. Thus, according to this scenario a lack of imitative responsiveness at birth is a possible marker of later autism. In contrast children with Down syndrome are assumed to show a different development of imitation than children with autism. Studies have shown that they tend to follow a developmental trajectory that is similar to typically developing children although at a much slower rate. Recently we presented observations on facial imitation among eight infants with Down syndrome during the first four months of life. Five of the children were observed at one month and all five did imitate tongue protrusion and four of them also displayed imitation of mouth opening. This finding suggest that imitation is within the capacity of children with Down syndrome from the first month of life, though they show more variability in responding than do typically developing children. The different pathways observed for children with autism and children with Down syndrome will be discussed, as will the possible theoretical consequences.
paper
What is remarkable in the gestural repertoire of children with autism is the lack of gestures used for declarative or experience-sharing purpose, whereas imperative or instrumental gestures are relatively preserved. The impairment in declarative communication is likely due to the special nature of the sociocognitive experience of sharing attention/interest with another person.In a previous study we longitudinally investigated the use of imperative and declarative pointing gestures in three children with autism ranging in age from 2;1 to 4;4 years (Camaioni, Perucchini, Muratori, Milone; JADD, 1997, 27, 6). The children showed heterochrony in the emergence of different communicative intentions of pointing. The imperative pointing was easy for these children and emerged earlier in all of them; the declarative pointing emerged later in two children and was completely absent in one child.The present study aims at (a) confirming in a new and larger sample of children with autism the developmental profile found in the previous study; and (b) investigating the parallel changes in cognitive and communicative skills, as well as in symptoms severity. Five children with autism (two girls and three boys) aging at the begining of the research from 3;3 to 4;10 years, were tested for production and comprehension of imperative/declarative pointing. The technique devised in our previous study was used during five sessions carried out at 4-month intervals. Concurrently with the structured sessions, children were evaluated in terms of their cognitive abilities (Griffiths), their communicative abilities (QSCL, Camaioni et al., 1992) and the symptoms severity (CARS).Results will be analyzed in light of the idea that the nature of communicative impairment that is characteristic of children with autism may change over time and development, and may be affected both by mental age and by symptoms severity.