Early Cues from Parent-Child Interaction: Comparisons Among Young Children Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Language Disorder and Children not Diagnosed with a Disability

Over the past ten years, there has been a significant improvement in the sensibility and specificity of the earlier diagnosis of ASD. However, parenting traits were relatively explored among children with different disabilities. We aimed to clarify the characteristics of parent-child interaction among children with ASD and DLD, compared with children not diagnosed with a disability. The study recruited 280 children aged 1.5-3.9 years (30 children with ASD, 48 children with DLD, and 202 TD children) and their primary caregivers. Parent-child interaction was measured based on video recordings and observation. One-way ANOVA was used for the comparison of IRS-C scores among the three groups, and the t-test was used for pairwise comparisons; effect size was also calculated. Children's age and sex were further considered as grouping category in our analyses. All comparison models were adjusted by demographic background (i.e. child age and sex, sibling, main caregiver, mother education, and family annual income). Children with ASD showed the lowest level of general social competence compared to children with DLD (d = 1.298, P < 0.001) and TD group (d = 1.833, P < 0.001). Children with DLD showed less responsiveness (d = 0.780, P < 0.001) and less empathy (d = 0.706, P < 0.001) than TD children. Caregivers of children with ASD also showed the lowest level of parenting attributes relative to caregivers of children with DLD (d = 0.978, P < 0.001) and caregivers of TD children (d = 0.860, P < 0.001). The child- and parent-related traits also varied by child age and sex. We posit that parent-child interaction necessitates greater attention with respect to early screening and identification.