Communication in Families with Autistic Children: The Impact of Child Anxiety, Autism Severity, and Parental Broad Autism Phenotype on Family Communication

Abstract

Communication skills are vital for children to learn, grow, build relationships, and solve problems. Autistic children have unique communication challenges. There is very little research on communication in families with autistic children. My goal was to determine whether parental broad autism phenotype (BAP; the presence of traits resembling autism spectrum disorder), child anxiety, and autism symptom severity were associated with family communication. I focused on three specific elements of family communication: quantity of discourse, conversational topic, and speaker-listener system. Based on previous research, I hypothesized that increased (1) parental BAP, (2) child anxiety, and (3) autism severity would predict a diminished quantity of dialogue and increased on-topic conversation. I also explored the extent to which these factors were differentially associated with the amount of mother-child vs. father-child dialogue. Consistent with hypotheses, the current study found that maternal BAP and children's mental health symptoms were predictors of family communication. In addition, interesting differences between mother and father communication emerged.