Evaluating the importance of social motor synchronization and motor skill for understanding autism. Autism Res 2017 Oct;10(10):1687-1699
Date
06/08/2017Pubmed ID
28590041Pubmed Central ID
PMC5648610DOI
10.1002/aur.1808Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85031730768 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 56 CitationsAbstract
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. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1687-1699. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Author List
Fitzpatrick P, Romero V, Amaral JL, Duncan A, Barnard H, Richardson MJ, Schmidt RCAuthor
Joseph L. Amaral PhD Assistant Professor in the Neurology department at Medical College of WisconsinMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
Autism Spectrum DisorderChild
Female
Humans
Interpersonal Relations
Male
Motor Skills
