Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Show Impairments During Dynamic Versus Static Grip‐force Tracking

Abstract

Impairments in visuomotor integration (VMI) may contribute to anomalous development of motor, as well as socialcommunicative, skills in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, it is relatively unknown whether VMI impairments are specific to children with ASD versus children with other neurodevelopmental disorders. As such, this study addressed the hypothesis that children with ASD, but not those in other clinical control groups, would show greater deficits in high-VMI dynamic grip-force tracking versus low-VMI static presentation. Seventy-nine children, aged 7-17 years, participated: 22 children with ASD, 17 children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), 18 children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and 22 typically developing (TD) children. Two grip-force tracking conditions were examined: (1) a low-VMI condition (static visual target) and (2) a high-VMI condition (dynamic visual target). Low-frequency force oscillations <0.5 Hz during the visuomotor task were also examined. Twoway ANCOVAs were used to examine group x VMI and group x frequency effects (α = 0.05). Children with ASD showed a difficulty, above that seen in the ADHD/FASD groups, tracking dynamic, but not static, visual stimuli as compared to TD children. Low-frequency force oscillations <0.25 Hz were also significantly greater in the ASD versus the TD group. This study is the first to report VMI deficits during dynamic versus static grip-force tracking and increased proportion of force oscillations <0.25 Hz during visuomotor tracking in the ASD versus TD group. Dynamic VMI impairments may be a core psychophysiologic feature that could contribute to impaired development of motor and socialcommunicative skills in ASD.

Initial action output and feedback-guided motor behaviors in autism spectrum disorder

“…Importantly, these results also suggest that measurement of precision gripping variability at low force levels may help reliably differentiate children with ASD from age-matched TD children in line with recent data demonstrating that early emerging impairments in fine motor, but not gross motor, abilities were predictive of later ASD severity [ 25 ]. Our results also converge with recent studies demonstrating the importance of characterizing spatial and temporal aspects of visual-motor integration for characterizing heterogeneity across ASD symptom profiles and differentiating individuals with ASD from other neurodevelopmental disorders [ 35 , 70 ]. Deficits in early motor development in ASD appear to be predictive of familial recurrence suggesting that tracking select motor behaviors may provide important insights into both early emerging neurodevelopmental mechanisms and important targets for monitoring early emerging ASD risk factors [ 21 , 34 , 57 ].…”

“…The proposed studies aimed to characterize initial action output and feedback-guided motor behavioral precision in ASD across skelotomotor (hand) and oculomotor systems. We predicted that individuals with ASD would show increased variability of continuous grip force and trial-to-trial saccade accuracy relative to controls, consistent with prior studies from our group and others supporting an over-arching hypothesis that multi-sensory feedback control of motor output is compromised in ASD [ 35 , 47 , 74 ]. We also hypothesized that the accuracy of initial grip force output (primary pulse) and saccades would be reduced compared to controls, in line with prior studies demonstrating impaired feedforward control of rapid motor output in ASD [ 6 , 7 , 74 ].…”

Visuomotor brain network activation and functional connectivity among individuals with autism spectrum disorder

“…consistent with studies from our lab (Mosconi et al 2015;Wang et al 2015) and others (Morimoto et al 2018;Lidstone et al 2020) showing increased motor variability and reduced precision motor accuracy in ASD, especially in younger children. These precision sensorimotor tests may also be more challenging to individuals with ASD than TD based on studies showing that lateral cerebellum and prefrontal cortical circuits, including ACC and OFC, show greater coactivation during more challenging task or cognitive conditions (Braver et al 1997;Rypma et al 1999;Stoodley and Schmahmann 2009).…”

Time perception in autistic adults: Interval and event timing judgments do not differ from nonautistics.

“…A related theory proposes that problems with the temporo-spatial processing of information are characteristic of autism as a consequence of differences in neural synchronization (Gepner & Féron, 2009). As a consequence, perceptual and cognitive processing speeds are proposed to be reduced in autistic people, with improved performance when stimuli are slow or static (Gepner et al, 2001; Lainé et al, 2011; Lidstone et al, 2020; however, see Manning et al, 2013 for contradictory findings).…”