Sibling Relationship Quality and the Social Skills of Children with Autism

Background:   In typically-developing children, siblings can play an important role in the development of social skills. Although there is considerable literature on sibling relationships among typically-developing children, there is a paucity of research examining the sibling relationship and its effect on children with ASD. Moreover, research on the sibling relationships of children with ASD has primarily focused on the adjustment of typically-developing siblings and not the effect of the relationship on the social skills of children with ASD.

Objectives: We examined the relationship between the sibling relationship quality, the total number of siblings a child has, and the social skills level of children with ASD.

Methods: Participants in this preliminary study were 20 families of children diagnosed with an ASD (ages 3-15). We hope to recruit a total of 50 families for the final study. Of the 20 families, five of the children with ASD had no siblings and 15 had one or more siblings. The ages of the siblings ranged from 1-21 years-old, with 10 being older and five being younger than the child with ASD. To assess the sibling relationship, parents completed the Sibling Relationship Questionnaire (Furman & Buhrmester, 1985), which gives information on sibling warmth/closeness, status/power, conflict, and rivalry. To assess the social skills of the child with ASD, the parents completed the Bellini Social Skills Profile (Bellini & Hopf, 2007). To assess the sibling’s perception of the relationship, siblings completed the child portion of the Sibling Relationship Questionnaire.

Results: For children with ASD who had a sibling, parent report of sibling warmth/closeness was the primary predictor of social skills in children with ASD. Using a stepwise regression, we found that warmth and closeness was uniquely related to social skills, p<.05. We then examined the role of the age of the sibling relative to the child with ASD.  We found that parents perceived higher levels of rivalry in the relationship when the child with ASD was younger than when the child with ASD was older, t(13)=3.02, p<.01, but there were no significant differences in the other Social Relationship Questionnaire measures. Rivalry was inversely correlated with the number of siblings a child with ASD had, r=-.64, p<.01, suggesting the number of siblings decreased the amount of rivalry between a child with ASD and their sibling.

Conclusions: This preliminary study suggests that children with ASD score higher on social skills assessments when the parent perceives high levels of warmth and closeness in the sibling relationship. Additionally, the total number of siblings seems to decrease the perceived rivalry between a child with ASD and their sibling. Further research is needed to determine whether the level of social skills increases closeness to the sibling, or whether level of closeness increases as a result of higher social skills of the child with ASD.