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Computational Measurement of Social Communication Dynamics in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Romero, Veronica
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4086-6303
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1505206539146785

Abstract Details

2017, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: Psychology.
Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) exhibit impairments in social interactions that last throughout their lives and at the core of these impairments are social communication deficits. An ever growing body of literature has shown that language and interpersonal motor coordination are intertwined and both very important to achieve successful social interactions. Understanding where this relationship breaks down in children with ASD has the potential to provide great insights into the social communication deficits observed in the disorder. The current project used a standard clinical assessment tool of social communication (ADOS-2) to explore and determine the time-evolving semantics present in verbal communications, how these measures were related to frequently-used qualitative measures and how the verbal and nonverbal components of communication were related to each other in children with and without ASD. More specifically, the project: (1) quantified verbal conversational dynamics through the use of Discursis and categorical recurrence quantification analysis; (2) quantified the nonverbal aspects of conversational exchanges (by looking at bodily movement dynamics) using pixel change time-series extraction and continuous recurrence quantification analysis; and finally (3) determined the relationship between verbal and nonverbal aspects exhibited during the conversational exchanges and traditional measures used to quantify ASD severity through the use of correlational methods. Experiment 1 consisted of children between the ages of 6 and 10 years, all previously diagnosed with ASD to test the differences (or lack thereof) of behaviors exhibited by the children in two kinds of conversations (free flow vs. structured) given that children with ASD are seen as having difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various contexts. Experiment 2 had older participants (between 10-15 years of age) as well as typically developing children who were recruited to complete the ADOS-2 and serve as an age-matched control group, so that the expected social behaviors could be compared to those exhibited by children previously diagnosed with ASD. Differences were found between some verbal behaviors exhibited by children with and without ASD. These differences were not only confined to the pragmatics of language, but also to semantic and lexical components. Nonverbal behaviors exhibited during conversations involving children with ASD differed from those involving typically developing child. More importantly, both verbal and nonverbal dynamical measures were related to the traditional measures used to diagnose ASD and measure symptom severity. As a result, the dynamical measures explored here have the potential to improve diagnostic and therapeutic interventions in the future. However, some of the results observed were inconclusive due to low power. A larger sample size and a greater variety of test administrators and age groups should be explored in the future.
Michael Richardson, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Amie Duncan (Committee Member)
Paula Fitzpatrick, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Michael Riley, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Paula Silva, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
131 p.
Psychology
Autism Spectrum Disorder; Social communication dynamics; Discursis; Recurrence quantification analysis; ADOS-2

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Romero, V. (2017). Computational Measurement of Social Communication Dynamics in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1505206539146785

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Romero, Veronica. Computational Measurement of Social Communication Dynamics in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. 2017. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1505206539146785.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Romero, Veronica. "Computational Measurement of Social Communication Dynamics in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1505206539146785

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1505206539146785
310
© 2017, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Computational Measurement of Social Communication Dynamics in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder by Veronica Romero is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.