Dynamical methods for evaluating the time-dependent unfolding of social coordination in children with autism

Fitzpatrick, Paula; Diorio, Rachel; Richardson, Michael J.; Schmidt, R. C.

doi:10.3389/fnint.2013.00021

Cited by 66 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…With regard to the previous research examining social motor impairments in ASD, the general findings are often limited in scope and sometimes inconsistent and contradictory [9]. The limited scope and contradictory nature of this previous work is due, in part, to the fact that empirical, clinical, and observational research is often treated in isolation, without any attempt to formalize an integrative methodological approach for identifying and understanding the core ASD deficits in social motor coordination [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The limited scope and contradictory nature of this previous work is due, in part, to the fact that empirical, clinical, and observational research is often treated in isolation, without any attempt to formalize an integrative methodological approach for identifying and understanding the core ASD deficits in social motor coordination [9]. Thus, the social motor impairments that characterize children with ASD and the degree to which these impartments relate to ASD severity are largely unknown.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We then computed the percentage of occurrence of the absolute value of the relative phase angles across the nine 20°relative phase regions from 0°to 180°. Previous research has demonstrated that stable social motor coordination is characterized by a concentration of relative phase angles in the portions of the distribution near 0°and 180°(e.g., [9,15,16]), which corresponds to inphase and antiphase patterns of coordination, respectively.…”

Section: Distribution Of Relative Phase Angles (Drp)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of particular relevance for the current study, is that the few studies that have investigated the dynamics of social motor coordination in children with ASD have highlighted how these deficits might not be due to an absence of coordination, but rather to a difference in the patterning compared to typically developing (TD) children [1,9,10]. For example, Marsh and colleagues [1] investigated the interpersonal movement coordination that occurred between children and their parents sitting and rocking side-by-side in rocking chairs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, the social motor impairments that characterize children with ASD and the degree to which these impartments relate to ASD severity are largely unknown. Moreover, many researchers have simply focused their inquiries on whether children with ASD are or are not capable of carrying out certain social motor tasks, without examining how they perform these tasks over time-i.e., without examining the patterns or dynamics of the social motor behavior that occurs within a social context [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Using Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis to Understand Social Motor Coordination in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Romero

Fitzpatrick

Schmidt

et al. 2016

Springer Proceedings in Physics

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Interpersonal motor coordination is considered to be an integral part of maintaining successful social interactions. Research has shown that simply coordinating one's movements with another actor can influence rapport as well as feelings of social connection and social competence. Past research has also found that deficits in social motor coordination are associated with psychological dysfunction such as schizophrenia and borderline personality disorders. However, the potential association between interpersonal motor coordination and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has only received a very limited amount of attention. In the current experiment, children who had been previously diagnosed with ASD and typically developing (TD) children were asked to synchronize with or imitate the movements of an experimenter in two different interpersonal motor tasks: object tapping and hand-clapping. Both the experimenter's and the participants' movements were captured and compared to each other using relative phase analysis and cross-recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA). The results reveal differences not only in the patterning of the coordination that occurred for ASD and TD children, but also in the stability and deterministic structure of the coordination. Of particular interest was the finding that children with ASD exhibited less stable (robust), but more deterministic patterns of interpersonal social motor coordination compared to TD children.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Distribution Of Relative Phase Angles (Drp)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Using Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis to Understand Social Motor Coordination in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Romero

Fitzpatrick

Schmidt

et al. 2016

Springer Proceedings in Physics

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Evaluating the importance of social motor synchronization and motor skill for understanding autism

et al. 2017

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Lay Abstract Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have numerous impairments in social interaction that can severely impede mental and physical development, learning, and behavioral functioning at home and in the community and also make treatment difficult. In addition, many individuals have difficulty performing movements of the body that involve both large and small actions. We explored the role of an overlooked dimension of social interaction, social motor synchrony, in ASD, and evaluated its relationship with body movement. In particular we examined the ability of children with and without ASD to perform body movements alone or with another individual. We found that children with ASD were less able to synchronize their body with an experimenter and children with ASD performed single-person motor movements that were slower and more variable in both spacing and timing. Children with ASD had trouble performing movements that were of a consistent size and tempo over the course of the interaction. Such lack of consistency in movement likely makes coordination with another person more difficult. This raises the possibility that these types of body movements could provide new insights into understanding the social problems in ASD. Scientific Abstract Impairments in social interaction and communicating with others are core features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but the specific processes underlying such social competence impairments are not well understood. An important key for increasing our understanding of ASD-specific social deficits may lie with the social motor synchronization that takes place when we implicitly coordinate our bodies with others. Here, we tested whether dynamical measures of synchronization differentiate children with ASD from controls and further explored the relationships between synchronization ability and motor control problems. We found (a) that children with ASD exhibited different and less stable patterns of social synchronization ability than controls; (b) children with ASD performed motor movements that were slower and more variable in both spacing and timing; and (c) some social synchronization that involved motor timing was related to motor ability but less rhythmic synchronization was not. These findings raise the possibility that objective dynamical measures of synchronization ability and motor skill could provide new insights into understanding the social deficits in ASD that could ultimately aid clinical diagnosis and prognosis.

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Social synchronization during joint attention in children with autism spectrum disorder

Liu

Wang

et al. 2021

Autism Research

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Background: This study examined the social synchronization in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) when responding to others' joint attention. Social synchronization refers to an individuals' temporal coordination during social interactions, which has been found to play a crucial role in social development.De cient joint attention has been repeatedly found in individuals with autism spectrum disorder, and previous studies have demonstrated various explanations about it. In a more recent perspective, joint attention could be associated with spontaneous social motor synchronization, and it is possible to explore social synchronization as a pathway to understanding the impairments of joint attention in children with ASD.Methods: Forty-one children aged 5 to 8 with ASD and 43 age-matched typically developing (TD) children watched a video to completed the response to joint attention (RJA) tasks, during which their gaze data were collected. The synchronization of gaze-shift behaviors between children and the female model in the video was measured with the cross-recurrence quanti cation analysis (CRQA).Results: We found that children with ASD had the ability, to some extent, to synchronize their gaze shifts with the female model in the video during RJA tasks. However, compared to the TD children, children with ASD displayed lower levels of synchronization and longer latency in this synchronized behavior.Limitations: The RJA task in our study was not a real social interaction task but rather a one-way interaction. Social interaction between two persons through live video or a natural scenario should be further explored. Besides, additional work is necessary to determine whether our ndings generalize to individuals across the full autism spectrum. Conclusion:These ndings provide a new avenue to deepen our understanding of the impairments of joint attention in children with ASD. Notably, the analytic method can be further applied to explore the social synchronization of numerous other social interactive behaviors in ASD. Additionally, the impairment of social synchronization may be a new implicit indicator for the evaluation of autism and can be utilized to screen children with ASD along with other indicators.

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Dynamical methods for evaluating the time-dependent unfolding of social coordination in children with autism

Cited by 66 publications

References 77 publications

Using Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis to Understand Social Motor Coordination in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Using Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis to Understand Social Motor Coordination in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Evaluating the importance of social motor synchronization and motor skill for understanding autism

Social synchronization during joint attention in children with autism spectrum disorder

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