Coordinare la genitorialità nelle famiglie con un bambino con disturbo dello spettro autistico

Empirical and clinical work support the existence of a collective intersubjectivity that allows the child to interact precociously with both parents and to share experiences at a family level. Within such framework, the present research applies the clinical Lausanne Trilogue Play to children who have an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis. Families were able to participate to the implied shared task, but different types of miscoordination were evident at the level of organization, focalization and affective contact. With respect to Family Coordination Global Scores, many negative correlations were found: the more severe the symptoms observed in the children (ADOS), the more family coordination was dysfunctional. Correlation was particularly high (< 0.01) when parents played together with the child, regulating their interaction and alternating their attention: family disfunctionality was strongly linked to the severity of children symptoms. In the parts in which only one of the parents played actively with the child while the other was just a participant observer, some families were able to be functional, despite the child’s symptoms severity. Moreover, some cases showed a counterintuitive trend: e.g. child high functionality/low family functionality. In conclusion, the outcome of family observation are discussed in terms of their implication for clinical evaluation, assessment of risk and protective factors and family interventions.