A Perceptual–Motor Deficit Predicts Social and Communicative Impairments in Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have known impairments in social and motor skills. Identifying putative underlying mechanisms of these impairments could lead to improved understanding of the etiology of core social/communicative deficits in ASDs, and identification of novel intervention targets. The ability to perceptually integrate one's physical capacities with one's environment (affordance perception) may be such a mechanism. This ability has been theorized to be impaired in ASDs, but this question has never been directly tested. Crucially, affordance perception has shown to be amenable to learning; thus, if it is implicated in deficits in ASDs, it may be a valuable unexplored intervention target. The present study compared affordance perception in adolescents and adults with ASDs to typically developing (TD) controls. Two groups of individuals (adolescents and adults) with ASDs and age‐matched TD controls completed well‐established action capability estimation tasks (reachability, graspability, and aperture passability). Their caregivers completed a measure of their lifetime social/communicative deficits. Compared with controls, individuals with ASDs showed unprecedented gross impairments in relating information about their bodies' action capabilities to visual information specifying the environment. The magnitude of these deficits strongly predicted the magnitude of social/communicative impairments in individuals with ASDs. Thus, social/communicative impairments in ASDs may derive, at least in part, from deficits in basic perceptual–motor processes (e.g. action capability estimation). Such deficits may impair the ability to maintain and calibrate the relationship between oneself and one's social and physical environments, and present fruitful, novel, and unexplored target for intervention. Autism Res 2012,5:352–362. © 2012 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

What can autism teach us about the role of sensorimotor systems in higher cognition? New clues from studies on language, action semantics, and abstract emotional concept processing

“…It is notable at this point to speak of visuomotor or action-perception integration, a component of skilled, coordinated movements archetypally displayed in the hand-eye coordination required to catch or hit a ball with a bat or even in the climbing of stairs (Linkenauger et al, 2012). In the laboratory, it often contributes to tasks such as those of executive function which require fast pointing towards a target as it appears (Sachse et al, 2013).…”

“…In the laboratory, it often contributes to tasks such as those of executive function which require fast pointing towards a target as it appears (Sachse et al, 2013). Deficits in action-perception integration would explain particular difficulties in estimating movements with reference to the size and orientation of objects and spaces (Linkenauger et al, 2012), and why complex tasks involving sequential actions, speed and accuracy are especially difficult for autistic participants (Miller et al, 2014;Whyatt & Craig, 2012). Actionperception integration would also explain why visual stimuli are suggested to not prime motor programmes as they do in TD controls (Dowd et al, 2012).…”

“…The interesting lack of effect caused by a visual distractor, in ASC, was suggested by the authors to reflect that people with ASC do not generate alternative or multiple motor plans for potential actions (Dowd et al, 2012). This is interestingly related to another task framed around the ability of people with ASC to perceive affordances (the type of grip to use on an object, the size of an aperture their hand could fit through) and adjust their movements online, a task which arguably also requires motor planning and revealed difficulties in the autistic group in judging and executing the movements (Linkenauger, Lerner, Ramenzoni, & Proffitt, 2012). A similar line of enquiry related to motor planning concerns whether motor preparation, in people with ASC, reflects anticipation of expected actions, with several studies suggesting that this is indeed an area of impairment (Brisson, Warreyn, Serres, Foussier, & Adrien-Louis, 2012;Rinehart et al, 2001;Schmitz, Martineau, Barthelemy, & Assaiante, 2003;Stoit et al, 2013).…”

“…Where adults are studied, they are often grouped with adolescents in samples with substantial age range [Hardan, Kilpatrick, Keshavan, & Minshew (2003), for example, include an autistic group with an average age of 19 but who range from 8 to 43 years old] e a period in which neuroanatomy is likely to undergo gross alterations. Such wide-ranging samples are unlikely to capture particular characteristics of adolescents or adults, but nevertheless suggest that motor deficits exist in c o r t e x 1 0 0 ( 2 0 1 8 ) 1 4 9 e1 9 0 older populations (Barbeau et al, 2015;Biscaldi et al, 2014;Cook et al, 2013;Linkenauger et al, 2012;Sachse et al, 2013;Thompson et al, 2017;Travers et al, 2016Travers et al, , 2013. Where studies investigate age as a continuous variable affecting motor performance, such as with longitudinal designs, they suggest that the deviance in motor performance may widen with age (Lloyd et al, 2013;Travers et al, 2016) e this certainly requires further investigation.…”

Brainstem White Matter Predicts Individual Differences in Manual Motor Difficulties and Symptom Severity in Autism

“…For example, motor skills in infancy have been shown to predict communication skills at 18 months (Bhat et al 2012), later speech fluency in middle childhood and adolescence (Gernsbacher et al 2008), and current adaptive functioning and daily living skills in ASD (MacDonald et al 2013). In middle childhood through adulthood, a diversity of motor skills (i.e., motor composites, postural stability, gestural praxis, oral motor skills, manual motor skills, and perceptual-motor integration) predicted the severity of ASD symptomatology (Dowell et al 2009; Dziuk et al 2007; Hilton et al 2007; Kern et al 2013; Linkenauger et al 2012; Travers et al 2013), emotional/behavioral disturbances (Papadopoulos et al 2012), and repetitive behaviors/restricted interest (Radonovich et al 2013; Travers et al 2013). These studies provide converging evidence that a wide range of motor skills may be highly associated with a constellation of ASD traits across the life span.…”