Parents as a Team: Mother, Father, a Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and a Spinning Toy

For specific measures and findings, see Smith et al. (2012) regarding health symptoms and Seltzer et al. (2010) regarding cortisol levels deriving from dealing with adolescents and adults with disabilities including ASD. Also see research (Smith et al. 2010) that examines the effects of the family environment, especially “expressed emotion,” on ASD and its abatement as opposed to the escalation of behavior problems over time.

Literature on parental team work is sparse. In families with typically developing children, there are studies on non-overlapping shift work as a kind of “tag team” effort (Hattery 2001), co-parenting teams in the context of stepfamily households (Braithwaite et al. 2003), and team work involving parents with school staff (Comer and Haynes 1991). Regarding children with chronic health care problems, researchers (McNeill et al. 2014:1117–1118) refer to symmetry, whereby “parenting roles are shared and the mother and father work together as a ‘tag team,” with considerable overlap of what each partner does to look after their child” in day-to-day care. Other research (Bonsall 2014a), based on reviews of books by fathers of children with disabilities, turns up three methods whereby parents distribute responsibilities: cooperation, negotiation, and differentiation. As Bonsall (2014a:514) suggests in the context of discussing the role of fathers, research on what we call team work involving the parents or caretakers in the home as it occurs in real time is needed, a point to which we return in the Conclusion.

Both Goodwin (1990) and Goodwin (1997) have drawn on notion of the situated activity system. Goodwin (1990:8) proposes that the goal is to “formulate a unit of analysis which emphasizes the interactive meshing of the actions of separate participants into joint social projects.”

The study was funded by a seed grant from the University of Wisconsin Graduate School, and by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation, entitled “The Sociology of Testing and Diagnosis for Autism Spectrum Disorders.”

For another single case analysis of family interactions involving a child with ASD, see Sterponi and Fasulo (2010). The child in their study is an older, more verbal child with ASD.

Figures that have no accompanying transcript will be labeled with letters (A, B, etc.), whereas figures that have an accompanying transcript will be numbered (1, 2, etc.) so that their labels correspond to the number of the transcript.

See Demuth (1986) on prompting routines in the language socialization of Basotho children.

The testing sequence is related to the well-known instructional sequence identified in the work of Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) and Mehan (1978, 1979), which is operative in classroom or other educational settings.

However, current work on the interactional dynamics of testing (Talkington, in progress) shows how formulations about “play” and “game” operate within and for official testing activities.

Unfortunately, the stacking toy is behind a chair, and Mother’s hand is not visible except faintly on the original frame (through the mesh on the back of the chair. The arrow here is meant to point to where the toy and mother’s hand are.

A device for more explicit elicitation is to direct the child with “Say X,” where X is the target word. See Demuth (1986:46–47) and extract Y below.

We follow the general use of the term “directive” to refer to task-related injunctions or utterances whereby one person asks or tells another to do some specific task. Drawing on Goodwin’s (1990) discussion, our approach is that the directive force of an utterance is dependent on the sequential and embodied context in which it occurs. Research in family contexts with typically developing children (e.g. Cekaite 2010; Craven and Potter 2010; Goodwin 2006), and research on children with ASD or other developmental challenges (e.g., Aldred et al. 2001; Bernard-Opitz 1982; Duchan 1983; Koegel and Mentis 1985; Mirenda and Donnellan 1986), inform our analyses.

In relation to Father’s mostly accommodative style, Joey can show spontaneously the sort of speech production that mother worked to elicit in a conditional way. For example, at one point fairly early in the session when the parents were answering questions from the pediatrician (00:13:58), Father observed Joey climb up on the mattress. He used a declarative yes–no inquiry, “You gonna come up?” that both notices and asks Joey about his activity. Joey confirms, “Up.” He thereby not only shows the competence required to participate in a question–answer sequence but also produces an unscripted and unconditioned instance of language use that the mother’s interactional style works more explicitly to induce through conditional kinds of sequences.

Couper-Kuhlen (2014) discusses “proposals” and “offers,” whose linguistic formatting relate to Mother’s and Father’s formulations here. Mother’s utterance is proposal-like, in that it implicates her in the activity, and Father’s utterance is offer-like in that it addresses only Joey’s want.

There is a substantial conversation analytic literature involving research on directive-response sequences in family contexts with typically developing children (e.g. Cekaite 2010; Craven and Potter 2010; Goodwin 2006) that is helpful for our study. A thorough review can be found in Craven and Potter (2010:419–422). Also see communication research on directives involving children with ASD or other developmental challenges (e.g., Aldred et al. 2001; Bernard-Opitz 1982; Duchan 1983; Koegel and Mentis 1985; Mirenda and Donnellan 1986).

See Schegloff (2007:30–31) for a discussion of blocking moves in relation to pre-sequence and sequence organization.

Although she has her back to the family as she types on a computer, Dr. Daley looks up and into the one-way mirror where she can see the family behind her, and smiles in a way suggesting she assumes they can see her reflected visage as well.

Depending on their context as much as their syntactic design (often having a “bald imperative” form), aggravated directives invoke some kind of stark social imposition (Goodwin 1990:67–70, 78–79).

In McCathren et al.’s (1995) terms, this would be a “re-directive,” which proposes a new topic or direction by attempting to distract a child from a current endeavor.

See Whalen et al. (2002: 241) on “improvisational choreography,” and how routines and sequences (along with technologies and artefacts) often afford “extemporaneous composition.” Also, with regard to parenting children with autism, see Solomon (2013:132), citing Daniel (1998), on the use of “fugitive” and “improvised parenting practices.”

See also Goffman’s (1974:99–103) discussion of both “paternal” constructions, which are “felt to be in the dupe’s best interests, but which he might reject… were he to discover what was really happening,” and “strategic” fabrications, which again are in the target’s best interests but do not morally contaminate the engineers. Accordingly, in Goffman’s framework, the mother’s and father’s efforts here are paternal (or we might say “parental”), strategic, and benign fabrications.

For example, the mother in the family studied by Sterponi and Fasulo’s (2010) seems to employ an accommodative style when responding to Aaron’s appendor questions.

For a notable exception, see the “ethnography of autism” project (Ochs and Solomon 2004).

See Bonsall’s (2014b:297) discussion of how members construct families through actions and participation, and how researchers can locate disabilities “on a map of family relations” and in “routines and interactions.”