Infant muscle tone and childhood autistic traits: A longitudinal study in the general population

Abstract

Objective In a longitudinal population-based study of 2905 children, we investigated if infants’ neuromotor development was associated with autistic traits in childhood. Methods Overall motor development and muscle tone were examined by trained research assistants with an adapted version of Touwen’s Neurodevelopmental Examination between ages 2–5 months. Tone was assessed in several positions and items were scored as normal, low or high tone. Parents rated their children’s autistic traits with the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) and the Pervasive Developmental Problems (PDP) subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist at 6 years. We defined clinical PDP if scores were >98th percentile of the norm population. Diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was clinically confirmed in 30 children. Results We observed a modest association between overall neuromotor development in infants and autistic traits. Low muscle tone in infancy predicted autistic traits measured by SRS (adjusted beta=0.05, 95% CI for B: 0.00–0.02, p=0.01), and PDP (adjusted beta=0.08, 95% CI for B: 0.04–0.10, p<0.001). Similar results emerged for the association of low muscle tone and clinical PDP (adjusted OR=1.36, 95% CI: 1.08–1.72, p=0.01) at age 6 years. Results remained unchanged if adjusted for child intelligence. There was no association between high muscle tone and SRS or PDP. Exclusion of children with ASD diagnosis did not change the association. Conclusion This large study showed a prospective association of infant muscle tone with autistic traits in childhood. Our findings suggest that early detection of low muscle tone might be a gateway to improve early diagnosis of ASD.

Polygenic Risk Scores for Developmental Disorders, Neuromotor Functioning During Infancy, and Autistic Traits in Childhood

“…Many studies have reported co-occurrence of motor impairments with autistic traits and autism (6,7), and follow-up studies have shown early sensorimotor manifestations before an autism diagnosis in high-risk infants (8,9). We have previously shown that neuromotor development measured during infancy was associated with autistic traits in the current study population (10). Neuromotor development during infancy can be a measure of overall neurodevelopmental delay.…”

Structure, longitudinal invariance, and stability of the Child Behavior Checklist 1½–5’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–Autism Spectrum Disorder scale: Findings from Generation R (Rotterdam)

“…social, language, and repetitive behaviors) were measured by parental ratings using the scale 0 ( never true ) to 3 ( almost always true ), which we summed to yield a total SRS score. Serdarevic et al (2017) note that the SRS short-form correlated 0.95 with scores from the full SRS in a previous Dutch study.…”

“…ASD diagnosis. As reported by Serdarevic et al (2017), Generation R employed a multiple-gating procedure whereby children who (a) had a high score on the SRS short-form, (b) had a high score on the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ; Berument et al, 1999), or (c) had been assessed for ASD according to parental report were selected for a search of central medical records maintained by general practitioners. Only children for whom a diagnosis of ASD was confirmed by these medical records were considered ASD cases in this analysis.…”

Risk Factors for Unhealthy Weight Gain and Obesity among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Physical activity (PA) is considered a protective factor in maintaining a healthy body weight and preventing obesity [58]. However, opportunities for PA may be limited in children with ASD due to social and behavioral challenges [59,60], as well as motor deficits [61,62,63].…”