Modification process of relationship between mother and child with ASD

―A case study on the effect of RDI―

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to clarify the behavioral features of a mother and her son who has Autistic Spectrum Disorder（ASD）through RDI. The child was a 6-year-old boy who attends a special needs class in elementary school. The mother and her son have continued to do RDI for the last two years.

Mother-child dyad activities were videotaped three times as Relationship Development Assessment (RDA). Three aspects of relatedness (Larkin, et al, 2010): 1) attention engagement, 2) interactive regulation, 3) interactive engagement, were assessed. The behavior of the mother and her son in those video clips were coded with 32 categories by the behavioral coding system. The results are as follows: firstly, three aspects of relatedness between the mother and the child have changed three times in RDA. Secondly, non-verbal behavior in both mother and son has increased. Thirdly, the calculation of co-occurrence and sequences of their behavior could be useful in examining the modification process of their interaction. Therefore, it was suggested that RDI has influenced the relatedness between the mother and the child. Furthermore, the author discussed the importance of rebuilding good relatedness and indicated the difficulty of comprehending relatedness through behavioral analysis.