Visual tasks and postural sway in children with and without autism spectrum disorders

Standing Posture on Land and at Sea

“…This interaction is consistent with other effects of visual suprapostural tasks on body sway and confirms that the mechanical perturbations imposed by ship motion did not suppress or eliminate the nonmechanical influence of visual tasks on the control of stance. Overall, these results are consistent with land-based studies showing that postural activity is routinely modulated in response to variations in perceptual demand associated with suprapostural tasks (e.g., Chang et al, 2010;Prado, Stoffregen, & Duarte, 2007;Riley, Stoffregen, Grocki, & Turvey, 1999;Stoffregen et al, 2007;Stoffregen et al, 1999).…”

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].…”

Pre-Bout Standing Body Sway Differs between Adult Boxers Who Do and Do Not Report Post-Bout Motion Sickness

“…Clinical conditions can also influence the task specific modulation of standing body sway. For example, children with autism spectrum disorder modulate their sway in response to variations in visual tasks [30], but children at risk for developmental coordination disorder do not [47]. The present study provides the first evidence that task-specific variation in postural sway may be related to individual differences in susceptibility to motion sickness.…”

“…For example, sway magnitude is often reduced during performance of demanding tasks, such as reading, relative to sway during less demanding tasks, such as looking at a blank target [24], [30]–[32]. Studies of standing body sway in athletes have evaluated eyes open and eyes closed conditions but have not included variations in visual tasks [33]–[36].…”