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Published on: March 14, 2018
Social Referencing and Children with Autism
Jaime A DeQuinzio1, Claire L Poulson2, Dawn B Townsend3
11Alpine Learning Group, 777 Paramus Road, Paramus, NJ 07652 USA.
Infants use social referencing to understand unfamiliar situations by observing caregiver cues, which is crucial for language development. This study explores behavior-analytic methods to improve social referencing in children with autism.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Behavior Analysis
- Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
Background:
- Social referencing, observed in 6-month-old infants, involves looking to caregivers for emotional cues when encountering novel stimuli.
- This process is vital for early communication and language acquisition.
- Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often exhibit limited or absent social referencing abilities, impacting social development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present a behavior-analytic framework for understanding social referencing.
- To explore implications for interventions aimed at ameliorating social referencing deficits in children with ASD.
Main Methods:
- This paper offers a conceptual analysis based on behavior-analytic principles.
- It reviews existing literature on social referencing and autism.
Main Results:
- Social referencing deficits are a significant challenge for children with ASD.
- A behavior-analytic approach provides a framework for developing targeted interventions.
Conclusions:
- Behavior analysis offers a promising avenue for addressing social referencing deficits in autism.
- Further research is needed to develop and validate specific behavioral interventions for improving social referencing in this population.
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