This study assessed motor delay in young children 21-41 months of age with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and compared motor scores in children with ASD to those of children without ASD. Fifty-six children (42 boys, 14 girls) were in three groups: children with ASD, children with developmental delay (DD), and children with developmental concerns without motor delay. Descriptive analysis showed all children with ASD had delays in gross motor skills, fine motor skills, or both. Children with ASD and children with DD showed significant impairments in motor development compared to children who had developmental concerns without motor delay. Motor scores of young children with ASD did not differ significantly on motor skill measures when compared to young children with DD.

This study identified mealtime behaviors of young children (3-6 years old) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and compared these behaviors to children with typical development matched for age, gender, and ethnicity. The parents of children with ASD (n = 24) and children with typical development (n = 24) completed a mealtime survey to assess early mealtime history, mealtime location and behaviors, food preferences and behaviors, and eating problems. Parental concerns increased significantly after age 1 year in the children with ASD. Matched analysis results showed significant differences between the pairs of children in specific mealtime behaviors. More children with ASD were picky eaters, mouthed nonfood items, resisted new foods, limited foods based on textures, had problems with gagging, had difficulty eating at regular restaurants or at school, resisted sitting at the table, and threw or dumped food. Knowledge of these early differences can help pediatric therapists to assess feeding issues and plan interventions.

Intensive body weight-supported treadmill training may be an effective intervention for some children with CP who are ambulatory.

These findings strongly suggest that all young children with FAS should receive complete developmental evaluations that include assessment of their motor functioning, to identify problem areas and provide access to developmental intervention programs that target deficit areas such as fine motor skills. Fine motor delays in children with FAS may be related to specific neurobehavioral deficits that affect fine motor skills. The findings support the concept of an FASD continuum in some areas of motor development.

This pilot study investigated the feasibility of using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as a physiological marker of brain plasticity before and after an intensive body-weight-supported treadmill training (BWSTT) program in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Six ambulatory children (four males, two females; mean age 10y 6mo, age range 6-14y) with spastic CP (four hemiplegia, two asymmetric diplegia, all Gross Motor Function Classification System Level I) received BWSTT twice daily for 2 weeks. All children tolerated therapy; only one therapy session was aborted due to fatigue. With training, over ground mean walking speed increased from 1.47 to 1.66m/s (p=0.035). There was no change in distance walked for 6 minutes (pre-: 451m; post-: 458m;p 0.851). In three children, reliable fMRIs were taken of cortical activation pre- and post-intervention. Post-intervention increases in cortical activation during ankle dorsiflexion were observed in all three children. This study demonstrates that children with CP between 6 and 14 years of age can tolerate intensive locomotor training and, with appropriate modifications, can complete an fMRI series. This study supports further studies designed to investigate training-dependent plasticity in children with CP.