Naomi Sweller

Autistic individuals may be perceived as less honest than neurotypical counterparts, particularly when their neurotype is unknown. However, findings on naturalistic deception in autism remain mixed. This systematic review and meta-analysis examined naturalistic deception differences between autistic and neurotypical individuals. Sixteen studies (430 autistic and 430 neurotypical participants) were identified through searches of five databases (1994 to July 2024). A meta-analysis on 10 studies revealed that across studies, autistic participants deceived significantly less than neurotypical participants in hide-and-seek tasks, but showed no significant difference in temptation resistance tasks. Due to heterogeneity across studies, potential moderators such as age, gender, and experimenter neurotype could not be investigated. Findings have implications for improving understanding of autistic individuals’ communication preferences.

Conversations with caregivers scaffold infant language development. The importance of conversational turn‐taking is widely demonstrated in dyadic interactions, particularly in home environments. Less is understood about the dynamics of conversational turns in polyadic classroom environments where educators are responsible for facilitating conversations with multiple young conversational partners. This study used a microanalytical approach to examine conversations during ten‐minute recordings from 29 infants sampled from a subset of hour‐long videos of infants in early childhood education centers in Sydney, Australia. We examined the qualities of conversations beyond simple adult contingency to focus on both temporal and semantically aligned responses to infants' cues. The characteristics of conversational turns were then decomposed to explore how the likelihood of conversation changes as a function of infant vocal cues, caregiver response patterns, and the number of children present. Infants actively shaped their conversations with educators by directing their vocalizations to capture educators' attention. Directed vocalizations (educator‐directed, object‐directed) were more likely to receive a response than undirected vocalizations, and more speech‐like vocalizations received higher response rates than immature vocalizations. Contingency rates varied across infants, but most responses to infant vocalizations were semantically contingent, regardless of who initiated the conversation. Educator‐initiated conversations predicted longer turns than infant‐initiated conversations. However, group size did not relate to the length of conversations. Educators were skilled at facilitating multi‐turn conversations despite frequent polyadic interactions. The findings enhance understanding of the moment‐to‐moment interactions that shape language development and highlight characteristics of supportive language environments in classroom settings.

There is a notable paucity of research that has evaluated Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) and smartphone overuse prevalence rates in children following the COVID-19 pandemic, including in Australian school-aged samples. The aim of the current study was to examine the prevalence and developmental impacts of IGD and smartphone overuse in children using a self-report survey design. A total of N = 1993 Year 4–8 (10–14 years old, 66.2% male and 31.7% female) students completed the study. Medium to high problematic smartphone use was found in 9.9% of the sample, whilst 4% of children met clinical (1.2%) or sub-clinical (2.7%) levels of IGD, with no differences across age ranges. A pattern of increasing developmental impacts for smartphone overuse and IGD was found. The greatest impacts of overuse and IGD were on emotional development and physical health development. These findings have implications for the increasing need for parent education, access to treatment services, and a focus on early intervention programs in primary school.

Narrative recall and comprehension are important lifelong skills. While gesturing may improve recall by alleviating cognitive load, it may be differentially beneficial, depending on task and individual characteristics. While research on gesture’s effects on a variety of task modalities is burgeoning, effects on recall of narratives read aloud are under-examined. Further, emotional valence and individual differences in verbal memory may affect recall, through effects on task difficulty. If gesturing lightens cognitive load, it may be more beneficial for harder tasks, namely for narratives lacking emotional content and for individuals with poorer verbal memory. Across two studies, impacts of gesture production, emotional valence, and individual differences on narrative recall were evaluated. In Study 1, participants (N = 100) read aloud three emotive narratives (positive, negative, neutral) while either instructed to gesture or receiving no gesture instructions. Gesture production hindered recall, particularly for those with higher verbal memory. Emotion benefited recall, with enhanced recall of the negative narrative and impaired recall for the neutral narrative. In Study 2, following a measure of individual propensity to gesture, participants (N = 98) similarly read aloud three emotive narratives. Instructions to gesture hindered recall for participants with a lower propensity to gesture, and emotional narratives again saw enhanced recall relative to the neutral narrative. Propensity to gesture and verbal memory were positively associated with narrative comprehension. Results suggest instructions to produce gestures may for some individuals hinder recall for self-guided learners when studying written texts, while emotional content benefits recall.

There is currently a lack of intervention trials focusing on parent management strategies for Internet gaming disorder (IGD) and smartphone addiction. The aim of the current study (ACTRN12622001355763) was to examine the efficacy of the Tech Diet Parent Program (TDPP), an online parent management video program, in reducing IGD and smartphone addiction symptoms and associated developmental impacts. A total of N = 689 parent participants (with school-aged children) completed baseline measures and 153 parents provided 6-week follow-up data after completing the TDPP. Fifty-nine percent had a child at baseline with high levels of IGD and/or smartphone addiction symptoms. At 6-week follow-up 60% of children with high levels of IGD symptoms and 32% of high levels of smartphone addiction were significantly lower post-program completion. Increased levels of program dosage and compliance were found to be important factors in reductions to IGD and smartphone addiction symptoms, particularly for the high symptom sample. Higher dosage and compliance was also correlated with a significant reduction in the negative developmental impacts of screen use on the children, notably in the sub-domains of physical/social development and education. These findings have implications for utilising online parent management strategies for the prevention and intervention of both IGD and smartphone addiction, either as a stand-alone intervention or in conjunction with established individual treatments like CBT.