Research question 1: SSD, change over time

Do levels of Synchrony, Following, or Interaction Quality increase over a 10 week program of DMT for adolescents and adults with ASD?

4.9.1 Graphs for each participant

Each participant’s Affective Engagement, Flow of the Interaction, and Synchrony scores over time are presented in Figures 2 to 6. The graphs have one row for each segment type (with two additional rows to show the additional purposively selected segments for Anna). Rhythmic Synchrony and Exact Spatial Synchrony are included in all graphs, but Effort Synchrony is only included when the raters had at least moderate inter-rater reliability. Flow of the Interaction was only scored in the open-ended dance and purposively selected segments. For Affective

Engagement and Flow of the Interaction, the mean of the three raters’ scores is shown. For the Synchrony scales, the mean score is shown for those segments that were scored by two raters, and for those segments that were only scored by one rater, the score assigned by that rater is shown. There are two graphs for Hans: one includes all the sessions he attended, while the second graph shows just the five sessions in which he was paired with the same partner (see Figure 6).

Figure 2: Karl’s Synchrony and Interaction Quality scores over time.

Figure 4: Lukas’ Synchrony and Interaction Quality scores over time.

Note. Two segments are missing due participant or partner leaving the frame of the video.

Figure 5: Anna’s Synchrony and Interaction Quality scores over time.

Figure 6: Hans’ Synchrony and Interaction Quality scores over time.

Note. One graph depicts all sessions while the other graph depicts just the sessions with the repeated

These graphs were visually inspected for any obvious trends in the data. There is no clear trajectory that applies to all the participants. For each participant, there appear to be different patterns in the scores for the different segment types. For example, some participants had consistently higher or lower scores on a scale in a specific type of video segment. In some other segment types, there seemed to be more variability by week. For most participants, the scores tended to be somewhat higher in the purposive segments and somewhat lower in the open- ended dance segments. For Hans and Julia, the Affective Engagement was generally lower when they were leading and somewhat higher in the following and purposively selected segments. Lukas and Julia tended to have higher Synchrony than Affective Engagement when they were following their partners.

There was less session-by-session variation and smoother curves in the graph showing only Hans and his repeated partner, compared to the graph with all the partners (see Figure 6). In the leading segments, the Synchrony was high whenever the usual partner was following Hans and low when his other partners were following him. In the sessions with this repeated partner only, there appears to be a slight upward trend of increased Affective Engagement over time in the open dance segments.

4.9.2 Hypothesis 1a:

It was hypothesized that Synchrony and Interaction Quality would increase over a 10 week program of DMT. Given the available data, and with the participants switching partners weekly, this study did not show evidence of a change over time in either Synchrony or Interaction Quality for four of the five participants. The graphs of each of these four participants vary up and down by week and do not show a clear trajectory of change for any scale. The varying partners over the weeks made it impossible to distinguish any change over time from the influence of the partner, which is seen as a confounding variable. Given the lack of any visually apparent trends

to warrant further investigation, no additional statistical analyses for change over time were conducted for these participants.

One participant, Hans, did have a consistent partner for five weeks. His progress over time was analyzed by examining only the sessions with this one partner. Visual inspection of the graphs from sessions with this partner, shows a trend over time in the open-ended dance segments of increased Affective Engagement and possibly an increase in Flow of the Interaction. These graphs also show a possible increase in Rhythmic Synchrony in the purposive segments with this same partner. There are no visually obvious trends of change over time in any of the other segment types. These trends were further analyzed by correlating the scores for each scale with the session numbers using spearman’s rho. When all of Hans’s scores from sessions with this partner (combining all segment types), were correlated with session number, none of the scales showed a significant correlation with session number (see Table 10). Since the visual inspection revealed trends in the open-ended dance and purposive segments only, the scores were also correlated to the session number within each segment type. This revealed a significant

correlation of rs(3)=.900, p<.05 between Affective Engagement and session number in the open- ended dance segments only. These segments showed the least structured of the activities. With the purposively selected segments, the best interactions were already selected from the beginning and this may have made them less equivalent or may have created a ceiling effect for the

Interaction Quality scales. The other visually observed trends, Flow of the Interaction in the open-ended dance and Rhythmic Synchrony in the purposive segments, did not reveal significant correlations over time.

Table 10: Hans change on Synchrony and Interaction Quality with repeated partner. all segment

types combined

by segment type †

following leading open dance purposive Rhythmic Synch. .261 ††† .564 -.289 -.051 .632 Exact Spatial .022 ††† -.103 -.289 .354 .527 Affective Engage. .362 ††† .600 .224 .900* .205

Flow of Interact. .439 †† .821 .447

Note. Flow of the Interaction was not scored in the following and leading segments. All scales were

correlated to session number using spearman’s rho.

* p<.05, † n=5 for all correlations by segment type, †† n=10, ††† n=20

4.9.3 Hypothesis 1b:

It was hypothesized that the use of delayed movement when mirroring, as measured on the Following scale, would change over the 10 weeks. This hypothesis was not tested because the inter-rater reliability on this scale was low and it was dropped from all analyses.

4.9.4 Qualitative and mixed methods findings relevant to research question 1: For the most part, the qualitative descriptions did not specifically mention the exact forms of Synchrony or Following. When the descriptions included mentions of synchrony occurring, not occurring, or occurring for only a limited time, it was often not clear what definition the raters were using (including possibly entirely different definitions, particularly for the raters who were not trained on the Synchrony scales). The raters of the Interaction Quality scales did sometimes specifically describe a video segment, or particular event, in the terms of the Interaction Quality scales. They did not, however, use these terms frequently enough to analyze these for change over time, so they also were not particularly useful for a mixed methods analysis of this research question. While the qualitative descriptions were not useful in directly addressing research question one, they do add further support for the interpretation of the changing partners as a potentially more significant variable, versus time, in the intervention.

Partner as variable. Both the quantitative results and qualitative findings suggest that the partners played a role in the interactions, interpersonal synchrony, and some features of the participants’ movements. This is not entirely surprising as both people play a role in the interaction. Since only Hans had more than two sessions with the same partner, the role of the partner must be considered when examining the results of this study. In the graphs of the primary scales over time, the impact of the different partners was inferred through the fact that there was less variation across the five weeks that Hans had a single partner. The qualitative descriptions point more directly to the influence of certain partners, but give little indication of the relative impact of the partner compared to any change over time. Based on the qualitative descriptions, the synchrony during the leading segments may have varied with the partner’s motor skill more than differences in the participant’s leading.

When participants had more than one session with a specific partner, some of the raters noted that the movement, interaction, or avoidance patterns, seemed to be similar across several of the clips with that partner, revealing an interactional pattern specific to this partnership. Some participants (Lukas, Karl, and Anna) appeared to act differently with certain participant partners they knew from outside the DMT group. Anna, in particular, engaged very differently with her two RA partners, Hans, and the partner she was dating. She appeared more focused on the task with the RA partners, stopped to do sensory seeking movements most often when she was partnered with Hans, and she almost always held hands with, smiled, and looked at, the partner she was dating. For other participants, the participant’s patterns of participating in the different activities seemed to play a stronger role than the influence of the partner. For example, when Julia was following, she was much more engaged with two of her partners, during the open-ended dance, however, she remained “in her own world” with all of her partners.

Hans’s change over sessions with his repeated partner. Both Hans’s scores and the qualitative descriptions suggest that Hans and the RA partner built up a relationship over the five

sessions they were partnered together and Hans showed improvements in his interactions with her over time.

Other relevant qualitative findings. A couple of the other participants showed small improvements in specific movement features over time, although these were not directly related to the quantitative scales and are not reflected in the Synchrony or Interaction Quality scores. Lukas showed an increase in the intensity of his movements over the first few weeks, making him appear more engaged in the movements themselves. Hans increased his movement repertoire slightly over time, leading with a little more variety and complexity in his movements in the last two sessions.