The Effect of Unfamiliar Tasksand Teachers on Autistic Children'sNegativism

Paul E. Jose, lVI.A . and Donald j. Cohen, M .D.

A bstract. Novel stimuli (tas ks and teach er s) wer e tested as elicitors of nega tivistic task per­fo rm ance and avoid ance behaviors in autistic and cognitively and emotiona lly d isturbed chil­dren . Une xpectedlv, both groups performed better and wer e more interested in the unfa­miliar tasks than in the famili a r o nes. However, the unfamiliar reacher elicited aloofnessfrom the the autistic children and playfuln ess from the children with wgn itive processingdi stu rban ces. Evidence for a di stin ctive patt ern of "autistic negativi sm " was also found.

j ournal ofthe Alllfrican Academy of Child Psychiatry. 19:78-89. 1980

Sin ce Kanner's initial definition (1943) of a syndrome of " inbornau tistic di sturbances of affective contact," there has been conside r­able interest in understanding if and why autistic ch ild ren activelyavoid social contact and intentionally fail to comply with social ex­pectations . Kanner described a pas sive negativism , profound alone­ness, and an acti ve avo idance of an y experience which threatens topenetrate it: "Everything th at is brought to th e child from the out­sid e , eve ry th ing th at cha nges his exte rn al or eve n internal environ­ment, represen ts a dreaded intrusion" (p. 36).

Autistic aloneness, active resistance , and negati vism have beendi scu ssed repeatedly (Be tre lheirn , 1967 ; Boatman and Szure k, 1960;Rimland , 1964 ; Rutt er, 1974 ; Wing, 1966; Zaslow and Breger,1969). Experimental stud ies have , however, led to inconsistentfindings. For example , Clark and Rutter (1977) failed to replicate

Mr. j ose is a graduate student. Yale Univers ity Department of Psychology. Dr . Cohen is Professor ofPediatrics, Psychiatry, and Psvcholog», Yale Un iversity Child Study Center ami the School of Medicine(333 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT 065 10), where reprints may be requested.

P rof essor Eduard Zigler, Yal e University, provided valuable methodological and conceptual sugges­tiollS. We are g rate/ ill for the cooperation of the tearhers and director of The Foun dation School,Orange. Connecticut, and uf the parents awl children inuolued in this study .

The research wa.1 supported in par/ fry a Na tional Science Foundat ion j ellmoship (to Mr. jo.le) and II)'N IM H Clinical R esearch gran t #1 1'50 MH 30929. Public Health Seroice gran t HD- 03008 , Chil ­dren 's Clinical Research Center gra nt RROOI2 5. the Ford Foundation , Th e Solomon R. & R ebecca D.Baker Foundation, Inc., and M r. Leonard G. Berger.

0002-7 138/80/ 190 1-0078 SO1.09 ~. 1980 Ame rira n ..k ad em\· o f Child Psych iat ry.

78

The Effect of Unfamiliar Tasks and Teachers 79

an early in vestigation of task negati vism (Cowan er al., 1965 ).Other stud ies have lent only mixed support to th e basic hypothesisth at autistic children are negativistic (Chu rch ill and Bryson , 1972;Freit ag, 1970; Hermelin and O' Connor, 1970 ; Hutt and Ounsted,1966 ; Wallace, 1975). Differen ces in the operation al definition ofnegativi sm , nature of patients, and other methodological problemslimit com parison between stud ies . For example, some investigatorshave examined task-specific behaviors, such as the ch ild 's failure toperform a previou sly mastered task (Clark and Rutter, 1977;Cowan et al., 1965), while others have studied naturally occurringbehavior, such as the avo idance of eye contact (H utt and Ounsted,1966).

An autistic child's pattern of responding must be analyzed in thecontext of his or her understanding of the demands of the currentsitu a tion and basic social, emotional, and intellectual competencies.Negativism along with other symptoms may represent a compensa­tory mechanism devised to impose order on the world or reduceuncertainty and the dan ger of aversive consequences (Caparuloand Cohen, 1977 ; Cohen et al., 1978b). Thus, turning awa y orwithdrawing must be seen in the light of what the ch ild is at­tempting to achieve or succeed ing in achieving. In addition, thedefinition of a symptom atic pattern requires con sideration of ach ild 's response to variations in the situ ation and concurrent,ada ptive responses to th e task at hand.

For ex per imen tal stud ies, autistic negativism may be defined asan in tentional turning away from an adaptive re sponse to a taskand engagement in behavior th at is not task -related . Based on clin­ical expe r ience and research findings, we hypothesized that suchne gati vism would be heighten ed with novel tasks and an unfamiliarteacher and would decrease with task and teacher familiar ity. Toexamine this hypothesis, our study simultaneously assessed severaldomains of functioning (task-oriented behavior and behavior inap­propriate to the task or situ ation), as affected by two types of tasks(familiar and unfamiliar) and two types of instructors (familiar andunfamiliar teachers).

M ETHOD

Subj ects

Two gro u ps of ch ildren participated in th is study : 9 autistic chil­dren (mean age = 9. 1 years, ran ge 5. 10- 11.11 yea rs, 6 males, 3 fe-

80 Paul E. Jose and Donald J. Cohen

males) and 8 children with severe cognitive processing and emo­tional disturbances (mean age = 9.1 years, range 5.9-11.2 years, 3males, 5 females).

The diagnosis of childhood autism was consistent with criteriaproposed by the National Society for Autistic Children (Ritvo andFreeman, 1978) and the DSM III (American Psychiatric Associa­tion, 1978) as previously described (Cohen et aI., 1978a). The chil­dren with severe cognitive processing and emotional difficultiesrepresented a heterogeneous diagnostic grouping characterized byabnormal social development, attentional impairment, learning dis­turbances, and emotional immaturity severe enough to require ed­ucation in a special school. For such children, various designationshave been proposed, depending on areas of emphasis, includingsevere minimal brain dysfunction (MBD), atypical personality de­velopment, and profound learning disabilities with attentiondeficit syndromes (Cohen, 1976). The suitability of this group forcomparison with the autistic children was their similar socio­economic background (middle and upper-middle class), enroll­ment in the same day school, and pervasiveness of emotional andcognitive difficulties. Attempts were made to match the twogroups for chronological and mental, or developmental, age. Whileindividually matched controls could not be achieved with the popu­lation available, the two groups were of the same mean age and agerange and had comparable intellectual competencies. For bothgroups, IQs were generally within the 60-90 range, with great un­evenness and with individual children scoring higher and lower onsubtests. No child in the population was considered by the schoolor on medical evaluation to be primarily mentally retarded; how­ever, some in both groups functioned in this range on formaltesting. Although gross IQ comparisons and teacher estimates ofcompetence were partially used to match the two groups, total IQscores were not used as covariates in the analyses for this study dueto the small sample size, the variance across subscores, and the at­tempt to create generally equivalent groups. Instead, as an al­ternative approach to reducing the compounding effect (diagnosisx IQ) of intellectual competence, task difficulty was individualizedfor each child, as described below. All children were living at homewith their families and attended school 5 days weekly, and all hadbeen in school since age 4 years. The two groups differed on thecritical variable of autistic aloofness or withdrawal; the cognitivelyimpaired children were interested in social communication.

Th e E./fect cij' Unfa miliar Tasks and Teachers

Ta sks

8 1

Two fami liar and two un famili ar tasks were ut ilized . Familiar taskswere familia r to each ch ild from th e school curr iculum : ( I) di scrim­ination between plastic replicas of common fruits and vegetableswhen named by th e teacher; and (2) sorting plastic shapes (trian­gle, square , and circle) according to color or shape or both. Unfa­miliar tasks had never been used in the school: (l) sorti ng co loredmarbles (red, green, blue , yellow) into one of five co lor-codedholes arranged along the top of a box which allowed th e ch ild tosee th e marble roll down an incline after insertion ; and (2) com ple­tion of th e "an imal house" subtest of the Wechsler Presch ool of Pri ­mary Scale o f Intelligence (WP PSI) in whic h colore d pegs arematched accord ing to a code with common an imals by placing th ecorrect co lored peg in a hole under the an imal's picture . Taskswere chos en after extensive consultation with th e ch ild ren 'steachers to assure com pa rable interest for th e ch ild ren. To achievecom pa ra ble task di fficulty for eac h child , a gra d ua ted scale ofdifficulty was used for the tasks. Each ch ild proceeded up the scaleuntil he or she failed to satisfy a 75% correct cr iter ion . T hat thislatter objective was ach ieved is sugges ted by the sim ilar levels ofcorrect res ponses for the two types of tasks (mea n correct re­spo nses per session for the fami liar task s = 2 1.7; for the unfamil­iar, 22.1 , ns).

Procedure

All testing was performed in the day school in which the ch ild renwe re enrolled . Each child was brought to a fam iliar, uncluttered ,quiet classroom by the teacher. T he teache r inv ited th e ch ild topla y the ga me and th e first task was presen ted . The unfamiliarteachers were not informed abo ut a child's diagn osis. Order oftask s was randomized for every session for each ch ild . Teachers' in­teractions were prescribed by protocol, and comme nts and re­sponses were limited to describing how to do eac h task, correctingerrors, and providing verbal reinforcement.

Each ch ild was given all four tasks in each of 5 sessions held onsepara te school days. Session 1 was presented by a familiar tea cherfrom th e school, and sessions 2-5 were presented by an un familiartea ch er brought into th e sch ool for this study . Each particul ar ch ildwas mat ched to one of the three familia r teachers with whom he orshe had had the most extens ive con tac t. Assignment to one of th etwo un familiar teachers was ra ndom .

82 Paul E. Jose and Donald j. Cohen

Children 's performance was recorded by the teacher and an ob­se rver behind a one-way mirror and led to eight dependent varia­bles . The teacher re corded three var iables during the session : (1)correct re sponses ; (2) er ro rs ; and (3) instances of teacher assis­tan ce. In correct re sponses were scored whenever th e child put awrong-colored marble in a hole, placed a wrong-colored peg in ahole , or picked up and gave the teacher an incorrect fruit or plasticshape . Merely manipulating or pla ying with the wrong peg, fruit,etc ., was not counted as incorrect. Classification of correct or in­correct was suspended until the act of choosin g, dropping, orpla cing the item was com plete . Teacher assistance occu rred when­ever the child failed to make a choice within 15 seconds following arequest. The teacher would take the child's hand , place the marble,peg, etc., in it, and perform the act with him .

The observer recorded where the child was looking and also twomaladaptive behaviors. T he child 's looking behavior was time­sampled every 10 seconds and was defined by three all-inclusivecategories: (1) looking at the task; (2) looking at the teacher; and(3) looking elsewhere around the room . The obs erver also continu­ous ly recorded episodes of two competing behaviors : (1) pla yingwith the task ; and (2) sel f-stim ula tion . Playing with the task wasdefined as any acti vity with the objects involved in the task whichwas su per fluous to th e movement necessary for a task-related re­sponse; for example, twirling a wooden peg between two fingers.Self- stimulation was defined as an y repetitive movement of thebody or moving contact between two parts of the body; e .g ., a childflapping his hand in th e air or repetitively licking his lips.Interobserver reliabilities for the looking beh avior (9 1%) andmaladaptive behavior-playing with task (86%) and sel f-stim ula tion(76%)-were obtained by com par ison of percentage agreement fortwo trained scorers.

R ES ULTS

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) computations were performed foreach dependent variable using a 2 x 4 x 5 (groups by tasks by ses­sions) repeated measures analysis of variance design. Initial analy­ses revealed no significant differences between the th ree familiarteachers or between the two unfamiliar teachers . Thus, the effectsof individual teachers (with in the familiar and unfamiliar groups)were disregarded in the analyses presented here .

Th e Effect if Unfamiliar Tasks and Teachers 83

Diagnostic Groups

Differences between th e au tistic and cognitively disturbed childrenwere apparen t in their task performance. Across all 5 sessions, au­tistic ch ild ren needed more teacher assistance (F = 7.70, df 11l5,P < .02 ) and made fewer cor rec t responses (F = 6.92 , df 1115,P < .02 ). The autistic child re n also directed th eir gaze away fromth e task or th e teacher more ofte n than the com pa rison child ren(F = 8.76 , df 1115, P < .0 1) (table 1).

Task Familiarity

The familiarity of the task significan tly affected six of the eight de­pendent behavioral measures, independent of diagnostic groupmembership. The children looked at the new tasks more (F =70.30 , df 1115, P < .001) and played with them more (F = 7.77, df1/15, P < .025). Moreover, both groups of children seemed moredi sinterested in the familiar tasks. During the presentation of thesetask s, the children looked at the teacher more (F = 28.93 , df 1115,P < .00 1), looked elsewhere more (F = 17.02, d f 1/15 , P < .00 1),

T a ble 1

Gr oup Differe nces Averaged Across 5 Sessions

Task Performan ce'

Correct res ponsesE rrorsTeache r assists

Looking Beh av io r"

Looking at taskLooking at tea ch erLook ing elsewhere

Maludaptivc Behavior '

Playing with taskSel f-s tim ula t ion

Au t ist ic(;-.i :::: 9)

6 1.0d

19.;1·1.6"

(;9 %

15%17'10'

5.89.4

Lca rn ing D isabled(;-.i :::: 8)

11:1 .27.9

.2

78 ~~'~

H '", n

go'In

6,0

3.5

" R espon ses per da y. averaged across 5 da ys... Pcrcvntuge of time-sampled o bscrva t ions . rounded to 1'/" ." Avcrage number o f ac ts per m in ut e.d P < .0:-•.,. p < .025.

, P < .01.

84 Paul E. Jose and Donald j. Cohen

self-stimulated more (F = 10.15, df 1/15, P < .01), and made moreerrors (F = 8.29, df 1/15, P < .025).

Sessions

Changes observed over the 5 sessions reflect two different types ofphenomena. Differences between session 1 and session 2 representthe impact of changing from a familiar teacher (session 1) to an un­familiar teacher (session 2). A statistical contrast was performedwithin the ANOVA analyses to assess this impact. Differences oversessions 2 through 5 reflect changes during 4 days of interactionwith a new teacher who becomes increasingly familiar. To assessthis process, a linear trend contrast was performed for these 4days.

Sessions 1 and 2. Two dependent variables were significantly differ­ent between the first and second sessions. During session 2, chil­dren made more correct responses (F = 5.10, df 1/15, P < .05) andlooked elsewhere more often (F = 5.10, df 1/15, P < .05) (table 2).

There was also a significant interaction between diagnosticgroup membership and two behaviors during the first 2 sessions.

Tablc 2

Group Differences Between Session I and Session 2

Session 1 Session 2Autistic Lcaruing Autistic Learning

Disablcd DisabledTask Performance"

Correct:' 48.2 84,7 55.9 103.8Errors 17.3 6.1 18.2 8.6Assists 5.2 .50 5.1 .I ,J

Looking Behavior"

Look at task 77% 81% 68';6 74'/0Look at teacher 15j~ 10% 13{;,~ 1!J'!oLook elsewhere" 8(1/ 9(;i~ 19% 7{11

/0 /0

Maladaptive Behaviors'

Play task 5.5 1.0 4.4 7.6Self-stimulation 6.0 1.7 10.7 23

a Responses per day."Percentage of time-sampled obsenations, rounded to I'::,." Avcrag« number of acts per minute." p < .05 (differcnce between session I and session 2 with groups combined).

The Effect of Unfamiliar Tasks and Teachers 85

On the second day , the learning d isab led chi ld ren showed a consid­erable increase in playing, while the aut istic group played sligh tlyless often (F = 4.59, df 1/15, P < .05). A similar pattern emergedfor the conceptually important behavior of looking at the teac her.Although statistically nonsignificant (F = 3.60, df 1/15, P < .07),the interaction suggests that the autistic chi ldren avoided lookin g atthe unfamiliar teacher while the comparison children were moreinterested in looking at her than at the familiar teacher (table 2).

Sessions 2-5 . Dur ing the course of exposure to the unfamiliarteacher and the various tasks , the children showed two lineartrends : an increase in the number of correct responses (F = 12.36,df 111 5, P < .0 1), and in playing with th e task (F = 7.05, df 111 5,P < .03).

R elations B etween M easures

The eight behavioral measures ex hibited a number of significan tcorrelations for each session and also when variables were ave ra gedfor all 5 sessio ns (table 3). To assess these relations, a principalcomponent factor analysis with varimax rotation was performed.Two factors accounted for 77 .1% of the original variance (table 4) .Factor 1 consis ted of two behaviors re lated to successful task com­pletion (looking at the task and correct responses) and two behav­iors shown by both groups of ch ildren in avoiding the task (lookingat the teacher and playing with the task). Factor 2 consisted of thebehaviora l avoidance stra tegies most clearly exemplified by the au-

Table 3

Currclat ion ,\ Ia lr ix of Eiglu lIeh;1\ ioral Me asures

Errors

Correct -.HO"

Errors.\ ssislsLook .u taskLook a t teache-r

Lo ok el sewh erePlay tusk

Assists

- .71\".78"

Look Look Lookal al Else· Pia ,.

Task Teachn wh er e Task

.8U" - .!)~P _ .7:"; 11 - .5U

-.70" .·IH .1'0" .:IH- .69" ..I~ .8·1" .~ H

- .8:1" -.70" - .:I~

,:11 .3 1.19

S" I£·St im u ­la t ion

- . :I ~

.70"

.41-.4 :1

.I I

.13

a P < .0;; , two -tailed rest ( I;; tlf)."p < .OJ. two-tuilcd test (15 dl ) .

86 Paul E. Jose and Donald j. Cohen

T able ·1

Fact or Load ings of Eight Dcpcndcm ," a ri ab les

Looking a t teach erPlayin g with task

Co rrect re sp on sesLooking at taskLo oking el sewher eErrorsT eacher ass istsSclf-st imul at iouDiagn osti c groups

Factor 1

.YO

.-10-.68

- .81

.2H

..t::;

.1::;

.OH

.II

Factor 2

.07

.17- .58- .-17

»:X !

.71

.67

.62

tistic children and most likely to be seen by tea chers and cliniciansas autistic negativism (self-stimulation, looking elsewhere , teacherassistance because of lack of response after a request, and errors).Thus, autistic children had higher factor 2 scores than the compar­ison ch ild ren, and the two gro ups could be discriminated by factorscores using Hotelling's T 2 statistic (p < .1). The difference be­tween the two groups of ch ild ren in approach to th e teacher andtasks was most apparent when diagnosis was introduced into thefactor analysis as a "dummy" variable . The behaviors in factor 1were expressed by both gro ups of children , and the diagnosis vari­able loaded weakl y (.11) on this factor ; diagnosis loaded stronglyon factor 2 (.62), reflecting the differences between the autisticand comparison children for thi s behavioral dimension.

DISCU SSION

When clinicians and educat ors describe an autistic ch ild's behavioras negativistic, they usually imply that the child has actively or in­tentionally withdrawn from a social or intellectual en gagement andhas avoided the performan ce of socially sanctioned behavior. Theconcep t of autistic "negativism" further suggests the clinical obser­vation that autistic children occasionally perform at their highestintellectual competence during acts of mischief or- fro m the par­ents' and teachers' perspective-negative behavior (Caparulo andCohen, 1977). This study aimed at assessing on e aspect of autisticnegativi sm: the ch ild' s ap proach to cognitively orien ted tasks . Wewondered whether autistic child ren approached tasks differentlyfrom other emotionally and cognitively impaired ch ild re n and

The Effect of Unfamiliar Tasks and Teachers 87

whether their approach was influenced by the familiarity of tasksand teachers.

Autistic and nonautistic learning and emotionally disturbed chil­dren differed on three behavioral measures across all the tasks.The autistic children more often looked awa y from the teacher andthe task; they made fewer correct responses; and they requiredmore teacher assistance. Factor analysis of the relations betweenbehavioral measures helps us to explicate these and the otherANOYA results by describing two patterns of negativism. In thefirst pattern, children looked at the teacher or played with thetask. In the second pattern, children stimulated themselves, lookedaround the room, did not respond to the teacher's requests, andmade errors. This second factor contained the behaviors whichmost clearly discriminated the autistic from the learning orcognitively disabled children and appeared to represent autisticnegativism in this experimental context.

Although the autistic children utilized the second strategy of taskavoidance more than the nonautistic children, there was consider­able overlap between the two groups of children in their inappro­priate and not task-oriented behavior. The differences betweenautistic and the comparison children might have been more pro­nounced if the situation had been more social and less clearly con­cerned with cognitive achievements (e.g., Hun and Ounsted,1966) ; if complex language competence (more advanced than theunderstanding of naming) had been required for task success (e.g.,Wallace , 1975) ; or if the children had been tested by strangers inan unfamiliar, more frightening environment (e.g., Churchill andBryson , 1972). Thus, this study ma y ha ve led to a conservative esti­mate of the negativistic strategies of the autistic children byrequiring only nonverbal responses , limiting the social interactionbetween child and teacher to a minimum, and testing the childrenin their familiar school environment.

To our surprise, the novel or unfamiliar tasks did not lead tomore negativistic behavior than the familiar ones. On the contrary,th e unfamiliar tasks elicited more interest and cooperation. Thesefindings may reflect the fact that the tasks were not sufficientlycomplex to induce more avoidance , especially for children whowere engaged routinely in highly structured educational activities.

The assessment of the impact of teacher famili arity was clouded,in part , by the confounding of task practice and change of teachersbetween the first and second sessions that resulted from sched-

88 Paul E. Jose and Donald J. Cohen

uling requirements. The increase in correct responses between ses­sions 1 and 2 shown by both groups of children can plausibly beunderstood as the result of practice. However, the significant in­crease in gaze directed elsewhere by the autistic children and thetrend toward more looking at the teacher by the learning disabledchildren suggest their different approach-avoidance styles to anunfamiliar person. The marked increase shown by the comparisonchildren in playing with the task and the trend toward increasedself-stimulation by the autistic children also suggest the differencesin avoidance strategies and response to the new teacher betweenthe two groups.

The data of this study suggest that autistic children may possessat least two different patterns of avoidance which could be labeledas negativistic. Although one pattern seems unique to the autisticgroup, they did not use it exclusively or predominantly. Thus, theresults of this study may help elucidate discrepancies in the experi­mental literature on autistic negativism by pointing out that moreattention should be paid to the precise nature of the factors thatelicit negativism and the relation between negativism and a child'sgeneral competence.

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