Comparing motor performance, praxis, coordination, and interpersonal synchrony between children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Abstract

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have basic motor impairments in balance, gait, and coordination as well as autism-specific impairments in praxis/motor planning and interpersonal synchrony. Majority of the current literature focuses on isolated motor behaviors or domains. Additionally, the relationship between cognition, symptom severity, and motor performance in ASD is unclear. We used a comprehensive set of measures to compare gross and fine motor, praxis/imitation, motor coordination, and interpersonal synchrony skills across three groups of children between 5 and 12 years of age: children with ASD with high IQ (HASD), children with ASD with low IQ (LASD), and typically developing (TD) children. We used the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency and the Bilateral Motor Coordination subtest of the Sensory Integration and Praxis Tests to assess motor performance and praxis skills respectively. Children were also examined while performing simple and complex rhythmic upper and lower limb actions on their own (solo context) and with a social partner (social context). Both ASD groups had lower gross and fine motor scores, greater praxis errors in total and within various error types, lower movement rates, greater movement variability, and weaker interpersonal synchrony compared to the TD group. In addition, the LASD group had lower gross motor scores and greater mirroring errors compared to the HASD group. Overall, a variety of motor impairments are present across the entire spectrum of children with ASD, regardless of their IQ scores. Both, fine and gross motor performance significantly correlated with IQ but not with autism severity; however, praxis errors (mainly, total, overflow, and rhythmicity) strongly correlated with autism severity and not IQ. Our study findings highlight the need for clinicians and therapists to include motor evaluations and interventions in the standard-of-care of children with ASD and for the broader autism community to recognize dyspraxia as an integral part of the definition of ASD.

Autism‐related behaviors in the cyclooxygenase‐2‐deficient mouse model

“…Interestingly, this age‐related motor impairment is also observed in our age‐dependent results, where only young (COX)‐2 − animals were affected but not adults. Impairments in motor function involving more complex motor skills such as reaching, grasping, precision gripping, and interpersonal motor coordination have also been reported in the autism population . Our results signify that (COX)‐2 − mice display motor abnormalities that might be akin to deficits observed in some cases of ASD.…”

“…Impairments in motor function involving more complex motor skills such as reaching, grasping, precision gripping, and interpersonal motor coordination have also been reported in the autism population. [92][93][94][95][96][97] Our results signify that (COX)-2 − mice display motor abnormalities that might be akin to deficits observed in some cases of ASD.…”

Motor learning and transfer between real and virtual environments in young people with autism spectrum disorder: A prospective randomized cross over controlled trial

“…This wide range of difficulties, which typically present in childhood, can impact the ability of people with ASD to acquire basic and important cognitive and motor skills required for typical lifelong development [Marko et al, 2015]. Besides the sensorial deficits, motor impairments have been commonly described in children and adolescents with ASD, such as lack of mimicry in abilities, interpersonal synchronization and motor coordination [Xavier et al, 2018], poor accuracy [Lindor, Rinehart, & Fielding, 2018], impairments in postural control [Miller, Cacola, Sherrod, Patterson, & Bugnariu, 2019], motor impairments in balance, gait, and coordination as well as autismspecific impairments in praxis/motor planning [Kaur, M Srinivasan, & N Bhat, 2018], and attentional engagement capacity [Bryson et al, 2018]. These findings raise questions regarding development of motor control and proprioception in young people with ASD [Xavier et al, 2018] and suggest that new approaches should be considered in order to enhance motor performance.…”

Interactive Psychometrics for Autism with the Human Dynamic Clamp: Interpersonal Synchrony from Sensory-motor to Socio-cognitive Domains

“…A few studies among children (6-11y) (Romero et al 2018) and adolescents (10-16. One hypothesis currently under investigation suggests that motor and sensory-motor skills development are linked to social cognition and cognitive development (Bhat et al 2016;Kaur et al, 2018). ASDs are frequently found to be associated with difficulties to attribute mental states to oneself and to others (Zalla et Korman 2018), where intention attribution is characterized by an appraisal based on intention underlying someone else's action (Hilton et Kuhlmeier 2019 In this work, we first want to validate in children with neurotypical development how the HDC can measure different behavioural mechanisms involved in social dynamic interactions, and then to evaluate how the HDC can assess the alteration of IS in ASDs.…”