Effects of visual search vs. auditory tasks on postural control in children with autism spectrum disorder

A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Motor Impairment as an Early Behavioural Marker in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…In a recent review by Motor and autism T. May et al Kindregan and colleagues (2015) identifying 11 studies investigating gait in children with ASD aged 4-18 years, there were only a few significant findings, but these varied and were sometimes contradictory. This is consistent across studies utilising different techniques to assess postural control (Fournier, Amano, Radonovich, Bleser, & Hass, 2014;Memari, Ghanouni, Shayestehfar, Ziaee, & Moshayedi, 2014;Minshew, Sung, Jones, & Furman, 2004). In their threedimensional gait study, Nobile and colleagues also observed a trend towards a slower gait velocity and argued that the general reduction in lower limb joint sagittal plane range of motion cannot be completely associated with this reduction in gait speed; rather, the children with ASD had a stiffer gait that may "reflect the presence of compensatory strategies to maintain balance control" (Nobile et al, 2011, page 277).…”

“…In quiet standing, children, adolescents, and adults with ASD demonstrate larger excursions in postural sway than controls. This is consistent across studies utilising different techniques to assess postural control (Fournier, Amano, Radonovich, Bleser, & Hass, 2014;Memari, Ghanouni, Shayestehfar, Ziaee, & Moshayedi, 2014;Minshew, Sung, Jones, & Furman, 2004). Even when afferent inputs are altered, such as the addition of a visual, auditory, or dual task; the absence of vision (eyes closed or vision occluded); or the modification of somatosensory cues (standing on a foam base), results are varied (Graham et al, 2015;Greffou et al, 2012;Kohen-Raz, Volkman, & Cohen, 1992;Minshew et al, 2004;Molloy, Dietrich, & Bhattacharya, 2003;Travers, Powell, Klinger, & Klinger, 2013).…”

Attentional and sensory contributions to postural sway in children with autism spectrum disorder

“…Poorly developed balance skills in children -regardless of pathology -may reduce the capability to develop more complicated movement skills, which, in turn, may hamper social development and the willingness to participate in sports [13]. Furthermore, a number of studies have analyzed postural sway, and have found postural abnormalities in ASD in various postural tasks, such as quiet standing and looking straight ahead [14][15][16], quiet standing and dual-tasking [17], quiet standing with the eyes closed [8], quiet standing on a sway-referenced platform [18], and quiet standing while performing visual search [19]. Also, postural instability appeared related to symptom severity regarding the occurrence of repetitive behaviors [8].…”

Visual feedback increases postural stability in children with autism spectrum disorder

“…Similarly, Molloy et al (2003) found that when their vision was occluded, children with ASD had significantly more difficulties in maintaining balance than controls, whether or not somatosensory input was also modified, which suggests an overreliance on visual cues. Two recent studies have further confirmed this visual dependency by showing that children with ASD show more postural sway than controls when their eyes are closed (Stins, Emck, de Vries, Doop, & Beek, 2015) or while performing a visual searching task as compared to sway during an auditory digit span task (Memari, Ghanouni, Shayestehfar, Ziaee, & Moshayedi, 2014). Minshew et al (2004) compared how individuals with ASD (children and adults) and controls compensate for disrupted visual, vestibular or somatosensory inputs and found the relative importance of the latter to be the greatest.…”

“…Secondly, we wished to explore the effect of visual feedback on postural performance. Our second hypothesis was that, given their strong reliance on visual cues when maintaining balance (Gepner et al, 1995;Gepner & Mestre, 2002;Greffou et al, 2012;Memari et al, 2014;Molloy et al, 2003), children with ASD would improve in their postural performance if provided with contingent visual feedback of the movements of their center of pressure (CoP).…”