Family and Teacher Accommodation of Restricted and Repetitive Behaviors in Young Autistic Children

Background: Family accommodation (FA) consists of changes in behavior or routines made by family members of people with psychological or developmental disorders, to reduce child distress associated with the disorder. Preliminary studies establish the presence of accommodation in autism, finding that FA positively correlates with autism symptom severity, anxiety, and disruptive behaviors, and negatively correlates with adaptive functioning. Some literature indicates that teachers of autistic children who incorporated their students’ special interests in the curriculum saw improvement in children's learning, social skills, and classroom engagement. Purpose: The current study examined accommodation among caregivers of young autistic children and the association between accommodation and child clinical characteristics. Methods: 87 families of autistic children aged 2-4 participated in this study. Parents and teachers reported on accommodation and children received gold-standard developmental assessments. Results: Parents and teachers reported frequent rates of accommodation. Maternal and paternal accommodation correlated differentially with child autism characteristics, and with each other. Teacher accommodation did not correlate with any tested variable. Conclusions: The current study elucidates the presence, significance, and differential correlates of family and teacher accommodation. Notably, the lack of association between teacher accommodation and child characteristics underscores the need for further investigation into how caregiver accommodation may differ across home and school settings. Keywords: autism, RRBs, family accommodation, teacher accommodation, adaptive functioning