Socio-Emotional Concern Dynamics in a Model of Real-Time Dyadic Interaction: Parent-Child Play in Autism

• Published in: Frontiers in psychology 2019-07, Vol.10, p.1635
• Main Authors: Hesp, Casper, Steenbeek, Henderien W, van Geert, Paul L C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: autism; child-parent; dyadic play; dynamical model; play initiation; Psychology; social skills
• ISSN: 1664-1078; 1664-1078
• DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01635

We used a validated agent-based model-Socio-Emotional CONcern DynamicS (SECONDS)-to model real-time playful interaction between a child diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and its parent. SECONDS provides a real-time (second-by-second) virtual environment that could be used for clinical trials and testing process-oriented explanations of ASD symptomatology. We conducted numerical experiments with SECONDS (1) for internal model validation comparing two parental behavioral strategies for stimulating social development in ASD (play-centered vs. initiative-centered) and (2) for empirical case-based model validation. We compared 2,000 simulated play sessions of two particular dyads with (second-by-second) time-series observations within 29 play sessions of a real parent-child dyad with ASD on six variables related to maintaining and initiating play. Overall, both simulated dyads provided a better fit to the observed dyad than reference null distributions. Given the idiosyncratic behaviors expected in ASD, the observed correspondence is non-trivial. Our results demonstrate the applicability of SECONDS to parent-child dyads in ASD. In the future, SECONDS could help design interventions for parental care in ASD.