The purpose of this study was to identify how autism-related child characteristics influenced mother-child interaction during a shared book reading activity. Coding systems designed to report parent and child behaviors during the task were utilized for this research. The children involved were required to meet criteria for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), be between the ages of 4 and 7 years, be at least minimally verbal, and have an IQ greater than 55. The results of a factor analysis identified a four-factor model of a parent-directed shared literacy task--clarification techniques, feedback techniques, teaching techniques, and evocative techniques. Both parent education and child social interaction skills were found to be significant predictors of the parent's use of clarification techniques during the shared literacy task. Parent education and child IQ were both correlated with positive parenting; child IQ was negatively correlated with negative parenting. Results from chi-square analyses utilizing the dichotomized CBCL externalizing behavior problems score, demonstrated that the presence of externalizing behavior problems was significantly related to children with less positive parents. A subset of the sample of children who had elevated problem behaviors and parents exhibiting less positive parenting was identified for future research in understanding whether the child or parent is influencing the relationship between child behavior problems and parenting behaviors.

High friendship quality is defined as both positive and negative features in which a friendship should have high levels of intimacy, companionship and closeness and low levels of conflict. Quality of friendship research is important to examine in adolescents with or without intellectual disabilities (ID) to examine not only the differences but also the predictors of successful peer relationships. Additional parent perception was added in this study to examine the differences between parent and adolescent views of friendship.

Participants were 106, 13-year old adolescents with (N=78) or without intellectual disabilities (N=28). Results demonstrated significant differences between both adolescent and parent reports of adolescents' friendship. Significant predictors of friendship quality

were found using both social skills and behavior problems.