Longitudinal associations between externalizing problems and student–teacher relationship quality for young children with ASD

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2014.09.007Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Young children with ASD experience poor student–teacher relationships, on average.

  • Children with ASD also show elevated externalizing problems in school, on average.

  • Higher externalizing problems predicted increased student–teacher conflict over time.

  • Higher externalizing problems predicted reduced student–teacher closeness over time.

  • This association was not moderated by cognitive ability or intellectual disability status.

Abstract

The associations between student–teacher relationship (STR) quality and externalizing behavior problems in school were examined among 166 children with ASD (82% boys, ages 4–7 years) across three assessments over a 1.5-year period; IQs in the sample range from 50 to 139 (M = 88.7). Unlike other non-ASD populations, the association between STR quality and externalizing problems was not transactional; instead, cross-lagged panel analyses supported a child-driven pathway whereby early teacher-reported behavior problems led to poorer relationship quality over time. Higher externalizing problems predicted increased student–teacher conflict from fall to spring of the same school year and predicted increased student–teacher conflict and decreased student–teacher closeness in the subsequent school year. Child behavior problems appear to drive changes in children's relationships with teachers that follow them across multiple teachers and classroom contexts. The association between early student–teacher relationship quality and subsequent externalizing problems was not moderated by cognitive ability or intellectual disability status. Findings suggest that interventions targeting early disruptive behavior problems may indirectly improve children's school relationships over time.

Introduction

The transition to formal schooling increases demands on children's social, behavioral, and self-regulatory skills (Pianta, 2010, Wildenger and McIntyre, 2012). This transition is common to all children, regardless of their disability status (Daley, Munk, & Carlson, 2011). The ability to adapt and function in the school environment is predictive of many positive outcomes, including children's behavioral adjustment (e.g., Silver, Measelle, Armstrong, & Essex, 2010), social acceptance (Arbeau, Coplan, & Weeks, 2010), social competence (e.g., Griggs, Gagnon, Huelsman, Kidder-Ashley, & Ballard, 2009), school attitudes (Birch & Ladd, 1997), work habits (Hamre & Pianta, 2001), and academic performance (Peisner-Feinberg et al., 2001), both concurrently and in later elementary school. However, for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) – characterized by deficits in social communication and interaction, and by restrictive and repetitive behaviors and interests (APA, 2013) – early school transitions may be especially challenging. In particular, young children with ASD often show heightened levels of disruptive or externalizing behavior problems, which may be exacerbated by the new stress and demands associated with school (Kaat, Gadow, & Lecavalier, 2013). For typically developing (TD) young children who do not have ASD, but who share many behavioral risk factors, early student–teacher relationships have been shown to have a compensatory role in their concurrent and future school adjustment (Tsai & Cheney, 2012). In fact, externalizing problems and student–teacher relationship (STR) quality have been observed to have a transactional relation: that is, increased externalizing problems may predict poorer STRs in the future, and poor STRs may predict higher levels of externalizing problems in the future (Doumen et al., 2008, Eisenhower et al., 2007, Griggs et al., 2009, Hamre and Pianta, 2001, Silver et al., 2005, Silver et al., 2010). While well-documented in children facing behavioral and contextual risk factors, this transactional association between externalizing problems and STRs is virtually unexplored among young students with ASD. The aim of this article is to test whether it applies for children with ASD; subsequent findings may inform intervention for easing and improving the early school transitions for this vulnerable student population.

As discussed above, young children who form strong bonds with their teachers are more likely than children who do not to show a number of positive outcomes. In the numerous studies that have used Pianta's (2001) Student–Teacher Relationship Scale to assess student–teacher relationship quality, student–teacher closeness is the hallmark of a positive relationship and includes such experiences as mutual enjoyment between the student and teacher, the student showing pride when praised by the teacher, or the teacher feeling in tune with what the child is feeling. Alternatively, negative STRs are characterized by student–teacher conflict, (i.e., the child ignoring or defying the teacher's instructions) and by student–teacher dependency (i.e., the child inappropriately seeking help and comfort from the teacher, instead of using trying to solve his or her problem independently) (Pianta, 1994). Conflictual and dependent STRs are consistently associated with negative school outcomes, including poor academic achievement and school adjustment (e.g., Birch & Ladd, 1997).

This literature has shown that among the factors that influence children's school adjustment, the quality of early STRs is particularly important (e.g., Baker, 2006, Hughes, 2011, Schmitt et al., 2012). Moreover, STR quality tends to be fairly stable over time, and predicted in large part by the behavioral challenges posed by the child (Blacher et al., 2009, Doumen et al., 2008, Eisenhower et al., 2007, Jerome et al., 2009, Serpell and Mashburn, 2012). To the extent that children show heightened aggressive or externalizing problems, but also positivity in their STRs, there may be therapeutic and reparative effect, whereby children show lower levels of externalizing problems over time (Meehan, Hughes, & Cavell, 2003). Similar findings have been found regarding the compensatory nature of STRs for children at risk due to their intrapersonal and family characteristics (Burchinal et al., 2002, Griggs et al., 2009). While these findings are based on samples of TD children, it is likely that young children with ASD share some of the risk factors as the participants in these samples, particularly around behavioral risk and externalizing problems. In turn, it is feasible that early, positive STRs may play a similar compensatory and therapeutic role for children with ASD.

The rate of ASD diagnosis in the United States is clearly on the rise with 1 out of 68 children is diagnosed with ASD (Center for Disease Control & Prevention, 2014), reflecting a 30% increase over the rates reported only two years ago. In turn, more children than ever with a formal diagnosis of ASD are entering the education system, in a variety of school and classroom settings. It is no longer a question of whether a teacher will encounter a student with ASD, but when (Blacher, Linn, & Zeedyk, 2014). Children with ASD face considerable challenges as they enter school for the first time; the risk of poor school adjustment for children with ASD is exacerbated by high rates of comorbid psychiatric disorders, poor adaptive behaviors, and possible intellectual disability (Leyfer et al., 2006, Mahan and Matson, 2011, Simonoff et al., 2008, van Steensel et al., 2013). Specifically, studies have shown that children with ASD are at heightened risk for symptoms of comorbid depression (Gadow, Guttmann-Steinmetz, Rieffe, & DeVincent, 2012), anxiety disorders (Guttmann-Steinmetz et al., 2010, Simonoff et al., 2008), specific phobia and obsessive compulsive disorder (Leyfer et al., 2006), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (Kaat et al., 2013, Simonoff et al., 2008, Yerys et al., 2009). These psychiatric symptoms, paired with the cognitive, communicative, and adaptive functioning challenges associated with ASD, are likely to make it more challenging for children with this disorder to establish the positive STRs that have been observed to be so impactful for other at-risk populations.

Only a handful of studies have examined STRs for young children with ASD (Blacher et al., 2014a, Brown and McIntosh, 2012, Longobardi et al., 2012, Robertson et al., 2003). In studies with a TD comparison sample, school-age children with ASD were observed to have higher levels of student–teacher conflict and lower levels of student–teacher closeness (Blacher et al., 2014a, Longobardi et al., 2012); a similar pattern was also observed when children with ASD were compared to children with intellectual disabilities, or ID (Blacher et al., 2014a). In terms of student–teacher dependency, Blacher and colleagues (2014) found that students with ASD and students with ID showed comparable levels, which were significantly greater than those of TD students. Because children with ASD are likely to need more adult assistance to master the behavioral, academic, and social skills necessary to function well in the school environment, STRs may take on even more importance for children with ASD than for children requiring less adult assistance.

Among young students with ASD, STRs were predicted by child-level factors, including disruptive behavior, social cognition, and social responsiveness (Brown and McIntosh, 2012, Howell, 2010, Robertson et al., 2003). It is likely that these relationships are shaped by teacher-level factors too. For example, Keen, Sigafoos, and Woodyatt (2005) found that teachers responded inconsistently to communicative bids from students with ASD and expressive language delays. Even though responses to a communication inventory suggested that the teachers recognized that many of the pre-linguistic gestures, body movements, and facial expressions of students with ASD were, in fact, attempts to communicate, they acknowledged only 24% of non-verbal communicative bids made by their students. While there are many possible explanations for this low response rate, including not observing the behavior or intentionally removing attention from an undesirable or inappropriate communicative behavior, these findings suggest that teachers may interact less with students with ASD. This poses another barrier for forming strong STRs within this vulnerable student population.

While few in number, the existing studies on STRs for children with ASD are informative and lay the groundwork for understanding the nature of early STRs and the factors that influence them. To date, however, no study has tested whether the relation between STRs and externalizing problems, which has been identified as bidirectional in other at-risk populations, is present for young students with ASD and whether it is bidirectional or unidirectional (behavior-driven or relationship-driven).

It is well-documented that children with ASD, relative to TD children, show heightened rates of externalizing problems, which may include aggression, hyperactivity, and rule-breaking behavior (e.g., Kaat et al., 2013, Kanne et al., 2009, Simonoff et al., 2008, Yerys et al., 2009). Of interest, Kanne and colleagues (2009) observed that parents were more likely than teachers to report externalizing and other psychopathology for children with ASD. A concurrent, negative relation between externalizing problems and STRs has been observed for TD children: Doumen and colleagues (2008) found that STRs are more positive for students who enter school with fewer externalizing problems. Furthermore, early externalizing problems have been shown to predict decline in STR quality over time, and across multiple school years (Hamre and Pianta, 2001, Silver et al., 2010). The findings of existing studies, all with children without ASD, also suggest a transactional relation between externalizing problems and STRs, with increased externalizing problems predicting poorer STRs in the future, and poor STRs predicting higher levels of externalizing problems in the future (Doumen et al., 2008, Eisenhower et al., 2007, Griggs et al., 2009, Hamre and Pianta, 2001, Silver et al., 2005, Silver et al., 2010). In light of the high externalizing problems among young children with ASD, it is likely that a similar relation may exist within this population; however, no study to date has tested this. The association between STR quality and behavioral outcomes may also be moderated by children's cognitive level. Estimated rates of students with ASD who also have intellectual disability (ID) ranges from 31% (Center for Disease Control & Prevention, 2014) to 55% (Charman et al., 2011). STR quality may more strongly predict behavioral and academic outcomes for these children who have ID in addition to ASD than for those without ID, due to their need for more intensive teacher support in academic learning as well as in the reinforcement of new behavioral gains.

In sum, the current study will address the following research questions with data collected from young children with ASD, their parents, and their teachers:

  • 1

    What is the nature of externalizing behavior problems and student–teacher relationship quality within our sample?

  • 2

    Is there a transactional relation between student–teacher relationship quality and externalizing problems over time for children with ASD?

    • 2a.

      Does level of externalizing problems predict change in student–teacher relationship quality from the beginning to the end of the school year, and from one school year to the next?

    • 2b.

      Does student–teacher relationship quality predict change in externalizing problems from the beginning to the end of the school year, and from one school year to the next?

  • 3

    Is the hypothesized effect of student–teacher relationship quality on externalizing problems moderated by children's level of cognitive ability or by the presence of intellectual disability?

Section snippets

Participants

Participants included 166 children with ASD (82% male) and one parent per child (84% biological mothers), who provided family background information. At the time of study enrollment, children were 5 years, 8 months on average (range: 4–7 years). Children were in preschool (40%), kindergarten (28%), first grade (24%), and second grade (7%). Child race was based on an open-ended parent-report item later aggregated into categories; children were 4% Asian-American, 4% Black or African-American, 59%

Results

To address our first question, descriptive statistics and correlations between variables were conducted with no adjustments for missing data. To address questions about the associations between student–teacher relationship (STR) quality and behavior problems over time, structural equation modeling analyses were conducted with MPlus using full information maximum likelihood (FIML) to estimate missing data; FIML has been demonstrated to be a robust estimator in structural equation modeling (SEM)

Discussion

In the current sample of children with ASD, student–teacher relationship problems were elevated compared to those previously reported among TD children and their teachers, with less closeness and more conflict. This observation is consistent with previous research on young students with ASD (Blacher et al., 2014a, Longobardi et al., 2012). Further, findings suggest that the association between externalizing behavior problems and student–teacher relationship (STR) quality may be bidirectional

Acknowledgements

This paper was based on a longitudinal study funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (R324A110086; J. Blacher, P.I.). Support was also provided by the SEARCH Family Autism Resource Center in the Graduate School of Education, UC Riverside. We are indebted to our colleagues and students and to the children, parents, and teachers who participated in this research.

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