Using the Three-Minute Speech Sample to Examine the Parent-Adolescent Relationship in Autistic Youth: A Qualitative Analysis
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Purpose This qualitative study examines autistic adolescents' perception of the quality of their relationship with their parent using the Three Minute Speech Sample.Methods Twenty autistic youth (13-17 years; 83% male) spoke, uninterrupted, for three minutes about their thoughts and feelings regarding their mothers. Audio-recorded speech samples were transcribed and coded for emergent themes.Results Adolescents highlighted emotional support and acceptance in the context of their relationship, support mothers provide for mental health, love and caring, efforts to build the relationship through shared activities, and areas of adolescent-parent conflict.Conclusion The TMSS is a low cost, low burden method by which autistic adolescents can comfortably and effectively self-report the quality of their relationship with their parent/caregiver.
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Short, unstructured speech samples have shown strong validity in diverse and vulnerable populations, including adolescents and caregivers from low-income backgrounds.
“Short, unstructured speech samples have shown strong validity in diverse and vulnerable populations, including adolescents [25] and caregivers from low-income backgrounds [26].”
From Motherhood in adolescence: a qualitative study of the lived experience of participants in a perinatal home-visiting intervention (2026) · cites this paper as [25]
The Discussion reports that autistic adolescents completed the short speech-sample task without distress and provided detailed accounts of their relationships. It also calls for further research to establish the method’s validity and notes that the sample was mostly White and from well-resourced families. Thus, this source supports its use with adolescents, but not a claim of strong validity across diverse adolescent populations. The low-income-caregiver portion is attributed to a separate citation. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Greenlee, J. L., Stelter, C. R., Hickey, E., Burton, C., Carlson, M., & Winter, M. A.
- Affiliations
- Lafayette College (US)
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Virginia Commonwealth University (US)
- Children's Mercy Hospital (US)
- Corresponding author
- Greenlee, Jessica L.
- Venue
- Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
- Published
- 2023-04-06
- Volume
- 54
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 2274-2285
- ISSN
- 0162-3257 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-3432
- PMC
- PMC11382256
- OpenAlex
- W4362658096
- Cited by
- 4
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 1
- FWCI
- 0.60
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (T32HD007489, U54HD090256)
- Autism Speaks (10654)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Family and Disability Support Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, autistic adolescents, parent-adolescent relationships, self-report, maternal relationships, emotional support, acceptance, parent-adolescent conflict, shared activities
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Autistic Disorder, Emotions, Female, Humans, Male, Parent-Child Relations, Parents, Speech, Qualitative Research
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