Faculty Collaboration Database

Brief report: visuo-spatial guidance of movement during gesture imitation and mirror drawing in children with autism spectrum disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 2013 Apr;43(4):985-95

Date

08/18/2012

Pubmed ID

22898762

DOI

10.1007/s10803-012-1631-8

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-84879461860 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   26 Citations

Abstract

Thirteen autistic and 14 typically developing children (controls) imitated hand/arm gestures and performed mirror drawing; both tasks assessed ability to reorganize the relationship between spatial goals and the motor commands needed to acquire them. During imitation, children with autism were less accurate than controls in replicating hand shape, hand orientation, and number of constituent limb movements. During shape tracing, children with autism performed accurately with direct visual feedback, but when viewing their hand in a mirror, some children with autism generated fewer errors than controls whereas others performed much worse. Large mirror drawing errors correlated with hand orientation and hand shape errors in imitation, suggesting that visuospatial information processing deficits may contribute importantly to functional motor coordination deficits in autism.

Author List

Salowitz NM, Eccarius P, Karst J, Carson A, Schohl K, Stevens S, Van Hecke AV, Scheidt RA

Authors

Jeffrey S. Karst PhD Associate Professor in the Pediatrics department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Robert Scheidt BS,MS,PhD Associate Professor in the Biomedical Engineering department at Marquette University
Amy Van Hecke PhD Professor in the Psychology department at Marquette University

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adolescent
Child
Child Development Disorders, Pervasive
Female
Gestures
Hand
Humans
Imitative Behavior
Male
Movement
Neuropsychological Tests
Psychomotor Performance