using developmental theory to explore … developmental theory to explore conceptions of friendship:...

Developmental Disabilities Bulletin, 2010, Vol. 38, No. 1 & 2, pp. 75-91

Using Developmental Theory to Explore Conceptions of

Friendship: A Case Comparison

Stephanie Patterson and Veronica Smith

University of Alberta

Friendships have the potential to enhance the development of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by providing support, positive behaviour models and links to the social community. However, dyadic friendships are dynamic and complex, requiring competency in numerous skill domains including interpersonal skills and social cognitive skills. Two modified interviews protocols (Lord, Rutter, DiLavore, & Risi, 2003; Selman, 1980) were utilized to capture the responses of a typically developing preadolescent female and a preadolescent female diagnosed with ASD. Two developmental theories, social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) and theory theory (Carey, 2009), were utilized to explore the differences in the two participants’ interview responses. Both participants provided some mixed or contradictory responses; however, as anticipated, the typically developing participant demonstrated greater insight and more developmentally advanced use of social cues and signals, than the child with ASD. Exploration of friendship concepts via developmental theory can provide an enriched framework to support children with ASD in their friendships.

Friendship interactions are “close, intimate, affective ties between children based on (1) reciprocal and stable (6 months or more) social interactions with a peer and (2) children’s companionship capabilities” (Bauminger et al., 2008a). Several researchers have examined how children’s conceptions of friendship develop over time. For example, Parker and Gottman (1989) determined that the function of friendship for typically developing children begins with coordinated play as a young child and grows into a method to understand behavioural norms as an older child. However, within the typical population there is variability; other researchers have found that children’s perceptions of what constitutes a good friendship are not always synchronized in a dyad, indicating differences in the conceptual definitions of friendship

76 Stephanie Patterson & Veronica Smith

Developmental Disabilities Bulletin, 2010, Vol. 38, No. 1 & 2

among children (Simpkins, Parke, Flyr, & Wild, 2006). The ability to engage in and maintain a successful friendship requires competence in multiple domains including complex social cognitive skills as well as interpersonal skills, specifically the ability to be reliable, helpful and exchange feelings (Asher, Parker, & Walker, 1998), a set of competencies that children with ASD frequently struggle with (Loth, Gomez, & Happe, 2008). Yet, friendships are of particular importance for children with ASD because these relationships can provide both supports and connections to the social community (Chamberlin, Kasari, & Rotheram-Fuller, 2007). Several studies have examined the friendship interactions of children with high functioning autism (HFA) and their peers through a combination of methods including observation, survey and self-report (Bauminger et al., 2008a; Bauminger et al., 2008b; Bauminger & Kasari, 2000; Chamberlain, Kasari, & Rotheram-Fuller, 2007). This research has primarily focused on examining the child’s challenges in engaging with peers whereas exploration of the child’s conceptual development of friendship that forms the foundation for these behaviours has been examined to a lesser extent (Bauminger et al., 2008a). If a child with ASD conceptualizes friendship in a different way than a typically developing child, this may lead to different expectations and behaviours when interacting with his or her peers. How children with ASD conceptualize friendship is not well understood. Within the autism literature, explanatory models, such as developmental theories, are rarely used to provide a framework from which to better understand friendship development. Two such frameworks, theory theory and social learning theory, will be used in this examination to explore friendship development in two pre-adolescent females, one who is typically developing and one with a diagnosis of autism.

Theories Underlying Friendship The concept of friendship can be viewed from a multitude of developmental frameworks and theories including social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) and theory theory (Carey, 2009). Social learning theorists emphasize the role of important adults in the child’s environment. Adults act as models and mentors who can support a child’s development through techniques such as scaffolding (Miller, 2002). Children who have observed the reinforcing value of friendship via adult models and who successfully demonstrate the interpersonal and

Developmental Theory and Concepts of Friendship 77


social cognitive skills required for strong friendship, have a higher probability of engaging in successful friendships. According to social learning theory, it is imperative that the novice attends appropriately to the model in order to extract and retain the important components of the interaction (Bandura, 1977). However, children with ASD may have difficulty attending appropriately to modeled behaviour, particularly when the stimulus increases in complexity (Williams, Goldstein, & Minshew, 2005). Other social cognitive skills are intimately linked to the ability to attend appropriately, including imitation skills. Imitation is a key social cognitive skill because it is through imitation that a child demonstrates that he or she has made a connection between the actions of others and his or her own actions, key for successful engagement in friendship interaction (Goin, 1998). Deficits in the imitation skills of children with ASD may lead to difficulties in important activity domains with peers, such as pretend and symbolic play (Travis & Sigman, 1998). Another theory that provides a framework of children’s conceptions of friendship comes from the core knowledge theorists (Gelman & Kalish, 2006). Core knowledge theorists view children as entering the world with innately specialized learning mechanisms that allow them to quickly acquire information of evolutionary importance, such as face perception and language (Frith & Happe, 1994). Core knowledge theorists, sometimes referred to as “naive theorists,” propose that young children actively organize their understanding of the fundamental aspects of everyday phenomena (Miller, 2002). Beginning in infancy, these naïve theories become increasingly organized mental representations of a particular domain (Miller, 2002). One of these domains of representation is Theory of Mind (ToM) which is a frequent area of focus in research undertaken as part of theory theory, also known as naïve theory (Miller, 2002). Peterson, Slaughter, and Paynter (2007, p. 1243) describe ToM as an ability to “recognize how people’s mental states underpin their overt behavior.” Despite individual variability, typical children’s social perspective-taking skills progress from the ability to reflect upon only one other person’s perspective, to the ability to simultaneously considering multiple perspectives (Parker & Gottman, 1989). It is because friendship requires that children have the ability to understand another person’s internal state and emotions, advances in social perspective taking inform the quality and nature of how friendship is perceived. Challenges in social perspective-taking can



lead to difficulty in understanding the social pragmatics of friendship interactions (Loth et al., 2008). Delays in the development of theory of mind skills obtained by typically developing preschool children have been noted throughout the literature in children with ASD (Frith & Happe, 1994; Mitchell & O’Keefe, 2008; Tager-Flushberg, 2007). Individuals with ASD across the lifespan may not understand that other people may feel or perceive experiences differently than they do (Chamberlin et al., 2007) or that people may say one thing but mean something very different (Loth et al., 2008). The differences and overlapping nature of social learning theory and ToM can be seen by reflecting on the developmental function of joint attention, a behaviour that is delayed or deficit in young children with autism (Smith, Mirenda, & Zaidman-Zait, 2007). Although joint attention improves over the course of development, researchers have found that impairments can remain throughout childhood and adolescence for youth with ASD (Travis & Sigman, 1998). From a social learning perspective, further compounding the difficulty in coordinating play and communication with peers is the reduced ability of children with ASD to engage in joint attention skills. By effectively “missing out” on opportunities to engage in the interests of others, the number of opportunities to participate in friendship defining activities with peers, such as shared dialogue and play, are again diminished (Travis & Sigman, 1998). From the ToM perspective it is assumed that, without ToM and, thus, an appreciation of another person’s mental state, it is unlikely that joint attention will occur (Travis & Sigman, 1998). A child’s level of skill in joint attention may be an indicator of the child’s awareness of the purpose of communicative interactions (Travis & Sigman, 1998). Imitation, ToM and language skills are skills considered necessary in cultural learning in order for a child to learn vicariously through another person’s experience and knowledge (Loth & Gomez, 2006). It is through these skills that aspects of the two theories, social learning theory and theory theory, are woven together. This paper will explore the following questions: (1) how can theories of development be used to explore the ways in which a child with ASD conceptualizes friendship differently and how that differs from a typically developing child? and (2) if a child with ASD conceptualizes



friendship differently, what factors or skills could lead to these differences?

Method

The Participants The interviews were conducted with two preadolescent females. The girls were included because of: (a) their proximity in age, (b) their own willingness to participate, (c) the willingness of the parents to consent to participate, (d) their gender and (e) the presence/absence of a diagnosis of autism. The first female (now referred to as the TD child) is a first generation Canadian. She is typically developing and 10.5 years old. Her family is middle class and of Middle Eastern heritage. The TD child attends her local community school and is very relaxed, quiet and patient. She has one sibling, a younger brother who is diagnosed with autism. The second female (now referred to as the child with ASD) is a 12-year-old girl who is diagnosed with autism. Her parents were both born and raised in China; thus, she is also a first generation Canadian. This child is an only child and her family is middle class. She attends a local community school where she is included in a regular classroom with the help of a full time one-on-one aide. The child with ASD is able to communicate in full sentences that are not unlike her peers’ in length and frequency. Over the years, she has had difficulty maintaining friendships both at school and in the community. Her friends are typically preschool/early grade school children. She has shown great gains in conversational reciprocity, but still has some difficulty with other social concepts, including personal space and appropriate voice tone and volume.

The Interview The protocol for the interview was developed by Selman and published

in The Growth of Interpersonal Understanding: Developmental and Clinical Analyses. In this book, Selman provides four interviews relating to social relationships with peers. Each interview is accompanied by a short story, followed by a series of questions related to the story as well as questions



that expand these concepts into the life of the target child. The first interview, “The Puppy Story,” was developed for children below the age of 9-10 years. Due to the complexity of the other three stories, The Puppy Story was selected for use in this project. The writer modified The Puppy Story by adding simple illustrations. The story was broken down into single sentences so that only one sentence and illustration were provided per page. The Puppy Story examines social perspective-taking ability. Within the story, the child is presented with a dilemma, followed by a series of semi-structured questions (Selman, 1980, p. 85). The story involves three boys, one of whom (Mike) has just lost his dog. The other two boys are looking for a birthday present for Mike. They come upon a pet store with only one puppy left. The boys are told that the puppy may be sold by the next day. Knowing that Mike is sad about the loss of his dog, they wonder if they should get the puppy for Mike. The interviewee is asked what the boys should do. A series of open-ended questions regarding self-awareness, personality, personality change and subjectivity, follow. To augment Selman’s (1980) protocol, questions from the Friends and Marriage section of Module Four of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Scale (ADOS) were also included (Lord et al., 2003). The ADOS is a diagnostic tool that focuses on the observation of social behaviour and communication (Lord et al., 2003). However, in this paper, the interview was not utilized as a diagnostic or screening tool for ASD. ADOS Module Four is designed for participants age 10 and up with fluent language, defined as expressive language of at least a four year old (Lord et al., 2003, p. 55). The section entitled “Friends and Marriage” is composed of semi-structured interview questions specifically targeting “concepts of friendship and marriage, the nature of these relationships and how he/she perceives his/her own role in these relationships” (Lord et al., 2003, p. 86). At the request of one of the families, questions regarding boyfriend-girlfriend relationships were excluded. Thus, this section was composed of questions about the child’s friendships and her thoughts on marriage. The questions were of interest because they have been designed for individuals with autism and they required the participants to discuss their own friendships, a component not required in the Selman (1980) interview. Therefore, the questions were used as a means to probe the participants’ thinking regarding their friendships.



The interview lasted 1.25 hours for each participant. Both families provided consent for their child to participate and allowed her to be left alone with the interviewer to encourage the children to answer freely and openly. The TD child’s interview was conducted at the family’s kitchen table. The interview with the child with ASD was conducted at a local restaurant of her choosing. The Puppy Story (Selman, 1980) was conducted first with both girls. The interviewer read the story slowly out loud to the child and then asked the questions listed in Selman (1980). (A full list of the interview questions asked and each child’s corresponding responses can be obtained from the first author.) The children were provided with The Puppy Story booklet and told that they were free to look at the story throughout the interview. Only the child with ASD made reference to the booklet. Following The Puppy Story, the children were asked to answer a selection of questions from the ADOS Module 4: Friends and Marriage section (Lord et al., 2003). Data Analysis This basic interpretive qualitative study (Merriam, 2002) uses case study methodology. The semi-structured interviews utilized to collect the participant data were recorded and transcribed by the first author. Transcripts were crosschecked with detailed field notes taken during the two interviews. The analysis included comparative cross-examination of the participants’ responses.

Results and Discussion

General Discussion Both participants attended well to the interview and thoughtfully answered the questions. Although the child with ASD holds a chronological age advantage of roughly one year over the TD child, upon observation, the TD child demonstrated the functional use of higher level social skills. There were numerous differences throughout their responses to the Puppy Story questions (Selman, 1980) and to the ADOS Module 4 Friends and Marriage questions (Lord et al., 2003).



Overall, throughout the Puppy Story interview, the child with ASD was fixated on the notion that the lost dog, “Pepper,” must be found. Unfortunately, the researcher found it difficult to grasp to what degree the entanglement in the idea of finding the lost dog may have contributed to inconsistent responses provided by the child with ASD regarding the possibility of mixed emotions and change over time. When asked directly in a series of five questions in the Selman protocol, if someone could act one way and feel another way or feel both happy and sad at the same time regarding a new puppy, the child with ASD indicated that, yes, this was possible. However, when she was asked about the character Mike and asked if Mike’s feelings might change over time, the child with ASD seemed unable to move beyond the present feelings of sadness associated with the loss of the animal, and appeared to become even more adamant that the lost dog must be found even if it required “a search party” to find it. Even when prompted, purchasing a new dog for Mike was not a possibility for the child with ASD. This is a very different response than that of the TD child who felt that Mike’s friends should support him by buying him the dog. Her responses appeared to acknowledge, over the course of a series of five non-consecutive questions in the Selman protocol, that Mike’s feelings about the lost dog could change, and that his reaction to the idea of a new dog at present might not be the same as his reaction after some time had passed. Both girls reported that, if Mike did not care about his lost dog, they would not consider him to be a nice person. When asked via the ADOS questions, what “being a good friend means” and “what the difference is between a friend and an acquaintance,” both girls indicated in their responses that the qualities of a good friend include being thoughtful, kind and helpful. The TD child also emphasized that friends listen to and confide in each other. Differences in the ways in which the girls demonstrated their understanding of the feelings of the characters will be discussed below. The ADOS Friends and Marriage interview questions differed from the Selman interview because the girls were required to think about their own friendships. Overall, the TD child talked about one good friend and demonstrated she could differentiate between acquaintances and friends. The child with ASD required some further prompting for her responses. She listed the names of numerous friends and reported that there are differences between friends and acquaintances. However, this



information felt rote and inflexible in delivery, leading the writer to question her true understanding of the conceptual differences. Application of Theory Social learning theory purports that most of what a child learns develops from active imitation after observing another person verbalize, gesture or complete an action (Goin, 1998). Learning occurs when the child witnesses that the model’s behaviour is reinforced (DiSalvo & Oswald, 2002). Failure to learn new social behaviours through appropriate models can occur for several reasons: (1) the child does not observe the relevant activity, (2) the observation of the event is encoded incorrectly into memory, (3) the child does not retain what was observed and learned, (4) a physical/motor difficulty prevents the child from completing the action or (5) there is not sufficient incentive for the child to attend to and acquire the modeled behaviour (Bandura, 1977). Children who have ASD have been shown to have difficulties in imitation, understanding the social components required to coordinate shared play activities and interpreting the social gestures of others (Wolfberg & Schuler, 1993). Via imitation, children demonstrate their ability to share a mutual social connection and social experience with another person (Colombi et al., 2009). Social learning theorists believe that learning will not occur unless the child appropriately attends to the model and perceives it accurately (Bandura, 1977). What are children with ASD attending to in dyadic friendship interactions? Might children with ASD be attending to different aspects of the interaction than typically developing children? Children with ASD have been shown to demonstrate impairments on even simple attention tasks when the stimuli are social in nature (Dawson et al., 2002). Eye tracking research has demonstrated that young children with ASD often look less at the eyes and face of an individual in a social interaction than typically developing peers (Klin, Jones, Schultz, & Volkmar, 2002). Further eye tracking research has demonstrated that this decreased attention to the face of the person reduced the precision of their attempts to imitate the actions of the other person (Vivanti, Nadig, Ozonoff, & Rogers, 2008). If children with ASD are not attending to a social model in the same way as their peers, then they may be receiving different information from the interaction (Loth et al., 2008). For example, when the child with ASD was asked, in the Selman (1980) interview, if a person could ever know



another person’s feelings, she responded that, yes, you could know another person’s feelings. However, she added that this was the case “mostly when they are sad about something… saw when someone’s parents pass away… because something happened to them and then someone told you.” This response indicated that she was not able to obtain a read on the person’s mental state solely by observation of the individual’s behavior; rather, she would understand only when a third party informed her that an event had taken place that would cause a person to feel a certain way. On the other hand, the TD child responded that you could find out another person’s feelings “when you talk to them.” This response indicated that she would have noticed something in her friend’s behaviour that indicated his or her emotional state, thus prompting her to investigate the cause of this state, whereas the responses of the child with ASD did not. These responses indicate that the TD child can participate in social exchanges in a more flexible way than the child with ASD. This notion of “stickiness” is evidenced in research by Ingersoll (2008), who found that children with ASD were significantly less able to engage in spontaneous social play imitation where the adult only modeled the play behaviours rather than directing the child to imitate in a structured setting. Thus, even though children with ASD may demonstrate the ability to attend and correctly imitate social behaviours, they may not be able to use them in a generative and flexible way as required in ongoing interactions with peers. This is also consistent with work by Schopler and Mesibov (1986), who found that children with ASD may be able to engage in a certain level of social reciprocity; however, often their ability to apply these skills in spontaneous and generative ways is lacking. The girls’ responses to a question in the Selman protocol regarding the ability to understand another person’s feelings also reference aspects of ToM, an important concept in theory theory. However, before the ability to understand the beliefs of others develops, one must develop an understanding of one’s own mind and inner states (Mitchell & O’Keefe, 2008). Mitchell and O’Keefe (2008) have suggested that children with ASD may not develop an understanding of one’s inner knowledge of self at the same developmental rate as their typical peers. In this interview, when asked about mixed feelings, the child with ASD responded that,yes, she felt this state was possible; however, she was “not sure” if she had ever experienced it herself and was unable to think of an



example for herself. Further, although she identified characteristics of good friends in the ADOS protocol to be the same qualities identified by the TD child, including “kindness,” “caring about others,” “talking to others” and “helping another person,” the child with ASD identified peers who do not demonstrate those qualities in their interactions with her. For example, she noted a peer, who she labeled a “good friend,” called her inappropriate names and indicated that they did not ever see each other outside of school except for a chance encounter at a bookstore. Overall, the TD child’s response indicated that she could infer a person’s mental state from his/her behaviour, whereas the child with ASD could not. Interestingly, the girls’ answers on the questions that followed were inconsistent and mixed, sometimes demonstrating insight into the emotional states of others and sometimes demonstrating a lack of insight. For example, when asked why Mike said that he never wants to see another puppy again, in Selman’s question 7, both girls indicated that they recognized that Mike may have said that he never wanted to see another puppy again because he was sad about the loss of his last dog. However, when asked if Mike would change his mind about his feelings later and why, the TD child demonstrated an understanding that Mike’s feelings may change because he will acknowledge that the dog is gone. However, one of the fundamental differences between the TD child’s responses and the responses of the child with ASD is the position of the child with ASD regarding the lost dog. From the first question of the Selman protocol, which asks the child what he or she thinks “Tom the boy who is buying the birthday present should do,” the child with ASD maintained that Tom should not buy the dog but that “Tom might help Mike try to find his lost dog” or “decide to help Mike search for Pepper.” She maintained that the lost dog must be found, not acknowledging the possibility of changing feelings over time or a full understanding of the complexities of the character’s current frame of mind. Tomasello, Carpenter, Behne, and Moll (2005) propose that there are two complementary social processes around understanding experiences, including (1) the ability to understand the intentions of another and (2) the ability to share intentions and experiences with others. Although the child with ASD may understand the intentions of the other person, she may encounter more difficulty in sharing in the experience of another person, leading to difficulties in cooperative social experiences such as friendship and play. Interestingly, also in response



to Selman’s question 9, the child with ASD acknowledged that it may be possible for Mike to not fully understand his own mind, while the TD child did not indicate that she would accept this as a possibility. The child with ASD also thought it was possible to not know your own feelings even when you think about them (Selman question 12) but the TD child did not. Further questioning, reflecting upon whether it was possible for the character in the story (Mike) to not know how he feels, provoked another response from the participants. Unlike the question about “knowing his own mind,” both girls thought this was possible but cited different reasons why. The TD child mentioned a public vs. private persona, noting that Mike may be feeling sad on the inside but want to show that he is happy on the outside. The child with ASD provided a developmental explanation, saying that only some people may not understand, giving the example of an infant who cannot yet talk. She appeared to relate the inability to talk to the ability to understand one’s feelings. Further, when talking about mixed feelings and the progression of feelings over time, as part of a series of three questions in the Selman protocol, both participants’ answers reflected both stability and varying degrees of change in feelings over time. However, the responses provided by the child with ASD, to Selman’s questions regarding the stability of personality characteristics and feelings over the course of childhood, felt rote in delivery and inconsistent with her previous answers that had focused on the lost dog. At this point, late in the interview, she is still focused on finding the lost dog. So much so, that when asked how long it would take Mike to get over the loss of his dog, she responded “a long time… that’s a hard question… because he might need a search party to look for it.” The child with ASD then emphasized that the way a person changes when they grow older is by “maturing;” however, she was not able to provide an example of what it means to become more mature. This prompted the interviewer to question the child’s true insight into the concept. The TD provided a different insight into change and continuity of feelings. She indicated that she felt that some aspects of a person’s personality (e.g. tendency to be unhappy) may stay somewhat the same over time but the feelings around a particular event or experience, such as the loss of a dog, will change as you learn over time how to handle loss and the feelings that accompany it.



Limitations and Lingering Questions Both girls demonstrated some level of inconsistency in their responses on ToM, self-insight and mixed emotion-related questions. Yet, overall, the responses of the child with ASD yielded greater inconsistencies, leading the interviewer to question if these inconsistencies were provoked by a lack of depth in her understanding of some of the concepts. However, there were aspects of the interview method that could potentially explain some of this variance. For example, several of the questions provoked only yes or no answers which limits insight into the girls’ conceptual understanding of the topics. It is also possible that the difficult wording of the questions and the sheer length of the interview contributed to their inconsistent responses. Although the Puppy Story is designed for children age 10 and under, the questions are fairly wordy and tend to repeatedly rephrase similar concepts. This led to some confusion on the TD child’s part because she thought she had already answered some of the questions. This exploratory examination of friendship concepts is also limited by the small number of interview respondents. Conducting the interview with multiple preadolescent children could help one examine whether these inconsistencies on questions regarding inferring mental states would be consistent across children of similar age and ability. Additionally, this inquiry included only girls, an exploration of boys’ conceptions of friendship might yield different findings. Future research could address such questions as: (1) are friendships the result or cause of social competence, (2) does one need to treat each dyadic interaction differently to be successful in friendship, (3) will this pose difficulties for children with ASD who often have difficulty generalizing skills?

Conclusions

It is possible that youth with ASD think differently about friendship than their peers do. Social learning theory and theory theory are models of development that can be used to explore the conceptual development of friendship for children with ASD. Children with ASD experience challenges mastering many social and interpersonal skills that have been heavily implicated in the development and maintenance of dyadic friendship, including imitation, joint attention and theory of mind skills. Difficulties experienced with these skills by the child with ASD may



impact on her insight into her peers’ mental states, thereby impacting on her success in engaging in meaningful peer relationships. Further examination of the impact of the development of these skills on the formation of a conceptual framework of friendship could lead to pathways for research to support children with ASD in their friendships.

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Author note Stephanie Patterson is a Master’s student in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Alberta. Dr. Veronica Smith is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Alberta. Correspondence can be directed to Stephanie Patterson at [email protected].

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