Being Misunderstood in Autism: The role of motor disruption in expressive communication, implications for satisfying social relations (original) (raw)
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Autism as a developmental disorder in intentional movement and affective engagement
Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 2013
We review evidence that autistic spectrum disorders have their origin in early, prenatal failure of development in systems that program timing, serial coordination and prospective control of movements and that regulate affective evaluations of experiences. There are effects in early infancy, before medical diagnosis, especially in motor sequencing, selective or exploratory attention, affective expression and intersubjective engagement with parents. These are followed by retardation of cognitive development and language learning in the second or third year, which lead to a diagnosis of ASD. The early signs relate to abnormalities that have been found in brain stem systems and cerebellum in the embryo or early foetal stage, before the cerebral neocortex is functional, and they have clear consequences in infancy when neocortical systems are intensively elaborated. We propose, with evidence of the disturbances of posture, locomotion and prospective motor control in children with autism, as well as facial expression of interest and affect, and attention to other persons’ expressions, that examination of the psychobiology of motor affective disorders, rather than later developing cognitive or linguistic ones, may facilitate early diagnosis. Research in this area may also explain how intense interaction, imitation or ‘expressive art’ therapies, which respond intimately with motor activities, are effective at later stages. Exceptional talents of some autistic people may be acquired compensations for basic problems with expectant self-regulations of movement, attention and emotion.
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2013
Two studies investigated whether typically developing children (TD) and children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) were able to decide whether two characters were communicating or not on the basis of point-light displays. Point-lights portrayed actors engaged or not in a social interaction. In study 1, TD children (4-10 years old; n = 36) grasped social intentions from body language, with a notable improvement around 7/8. In study 2, children with ASD (6-12 years old; n = 12) could categorize the point-light displays at above-chance levels, but performed less efficiently, especially for the social interaction displays, than TD children (matched to chronological and non-verbal mental age, 6-12 years old; n = 24). An action representation deficit is discussed in relation to a social representation deficit and it is suggested that these deficits might be linked to altered maturational process of the mirror system in ASD.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2012
Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have known impairments in social and motor skills. Identifying putative underlying mechanisms of these impairments could lead to improved understanding of the etiology of core social/communicative deficits in ASDs, and identification of novel intervention targets. The ability to perceptually integrate one's physical capacities with one's environment (affordance perception) may be such a mechanism. This ability has been theorized to be impaired in ASDs, but this question has never been directly tested. Crucially, affordance perception has shown to be amenable to learning; thus, if it is implicated in deficits in ASDs, it may be a valuable unexplored intervention target. The present study compared affordance perception in adolescents and adults with ASDs to typically developing (TD) controls. Two groups of individuals (adolescents and adults) with ASDs and age-matched TD controls completed well-established action capability estimation tasks (reachability, graspability, and aperture passability). Their caregivers completed a measure of their lifetime social/communicative deficits. Compared with controls, individuals with ASDs showed unprecedented gross impairments in relating information about their bodies' action capabilities to visual information specifying the environment. The magnitude of these deficits strongly predicted the magnitude of social/communicative impairments in individuals with ASDs. Thus, social/communicative impairments in ASDs may derive, at least in part, from deficits in basic perceptual–motor processes (e.g. action capability estimation). Such deficits may impair the ability to maintain and calibrate the relationship between oneself and one's social and physical environments, and present fruitful, novel, and unexplored target for intervention. Autism Res 2012,5:352–362. © 2012 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Autism in Action: Reduced Bodily Connectedness during Social Interactions?
Frontiers in Psychology, 2016
Autism is a lifelong disorder, defined by deficits in social interactions and flexibility. To date, diagnostic markers for autism primarily include limitations in social behavior and cognition. However, such tests have often shown to be inadequate for individuals with autism who are either more cognitively able or intellectually disabled. The assessment of the social limitations of autism would benefit from new tests that capture the dynamics of social initiative and reciprocity in interaction processes, and that are not dependent on intellectual or verbal skills. New entry points for the development of such assessments may be found in 'bodily connectedness', the attunement of bodily movement between two individuals. In typical development, bodily connectedness is related to psychological connectedness, including social skills and relation quality. Limitations in bodily connectedness could be a central mechanism underlying the social impairment in autism. While bodily connectedness can be minutely assessed with advanced techniques, our understanding of these skills in autism is limited. This Perspective provides examples of how the potential relation between bodily connectedness and specific characteristics of autism can be examined using methods from the coordination dynamics approach. Uncovering this relation is particularly important for developing sensitive tools to assess the tendency to initiate social interactions and the dynamics of mutual adjustments during social interactions, as current assessments are not suited to grasp ongoing dynamics and reciprocity in behavior. The outcomes of such research may yield valuable openings for the development of diagnostic markers for autism that can be applied across the lifespan.
Disentangling imitation and dyspraxia in individuals with autism
2010
Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by a 'triad of impairments' in the areas of social interaction; language and communication; and restrictive, repetitive, and stereotypical patterns of behavior (American Psychiatric Society, DSM-IV, 1994). The DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for autism (1994) was the end result of an international collaboration of both research and clinical institutions across twenty-one different sites, and included the evaluation of almost 1,000 cases of autism (Volkmar, Klin, & Cohen, 1997). In this new classification, autistic disorder was included under the general category of PDD or Pervasive Developmental Disorders. Five categories are currently listed under the PDD umbrella: Autistic Disorder (AD); Asperger Syndrome (AS); Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS); Rett Syndrome; and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder. For accurate diagnosis of autism (DSM-IV 299.0), a total of at least six items from the three major groups are required; two of the criteria for social interaction (group 1), one from impaired communication (group 2) and one from restricted interests or repetitive behaviours (group 3). Also, "a delay or abnormal functioning in at least one of the following areas, with onset prior to age 3 years: (1) social interaction, (2) language as used in social communication, or (3) symbolic or imaginative play" (DSM-IV cited in Volkmar et al., 1997, p. 28) must be documented. The World Health Organisation's (WHO) 10 th Edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) is the second major classification system of diagnosis. The ICD-10 and the DSM-IV diagnostic classification systems are closely related according to 'legal convention' (Volkmar et al., 1997). However, there are differences Society reports that autism is "touching the lives of 500,000 families throughout the UK" (National Autistic Society, 2004). According to recent estimates, one in 100 children is reportedly affected by the disability in the UK alone (Baird, Simonoff, Pickles, Chandler, Loucas, Meldrum, & Charman, 2006). In 2000, the average ASD prevalence rate was 6.7 per 1,000 children (at 6 different sites) and in 2002, 6.6 per 1,000 children (at 14 different sites). In 2004, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) found that the prevalence rates were between 2 and 6 per 1,000 children. Therefore, using the higher rate, it was reported that up to 1 in 166 children are on the autism spectrum. In 2007, the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (part of the CDC) reported that the figure had risen to 1 in 150 children (ADDM, 2007). More than 1.5 million Americans are considered to be on the autism spectrum (Center for Disease Control Prevention, 2007). 2.1.4 Gestural Impairments within DSM-IV Diagnosis Autism is a developmental disability that affects not only the individual, but the entire family, and its impact on the family unit cannot be underestimated (National Research Council, 2001). One of the greatest sources of communication difficulty families and caregivers face when dealing with preverbal autistic children is that they do not compensate for their language deficit through the use of functional gestures, failing to spontaneously use conventional gestures to make their needs known (Wetherby, Prizant, & Hutchinson, 1998; Woods & Wetherby, 2003). Since the time of Kanner, gestural impairments in autism have been reported. Kanner (1943) published this description of a child from his original research, "Her expression was blank, though not unintelligent, and there was no communicative gestures" (p. 240). Curcio (1978) reported that children with autism did not use any pointing or showing gestures and stated that this performance was striking
On the nature of communication and language impairment in autism
Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 1997
Autism is defined as a developmental disorder that includes three primary features (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). First, there is social impairment, such as lacking eye-to-eye gaze, or lack of social-emotional reciprocity. Second, there is communicative impairment, such as delayed language development, or poor ability to initiate or sustain conversation. Finally, there are restricted repetitive and stereotypic patterns of behavior, such as inflexible adherence to specific nonfunctional rituals. Autism is evident before 3 years of age, when children show delayed or abnormal social interaction, language, or symbolic imaginative play. Many theories have been advanced regarding its etiology. In recent years, scholars have become excited by theories suggesting that a deficit in a Theory of Mind module, or in cognitive executive functioning, or in social-orienting skills may underlie this mysterious disorder. The authors of this article propose that "a developmental and dynamic systems perspective" may be important in understanding the social and communicative deficits in autism. They emphasize throughout the article that the functioning of the developing brain underlies the child's ability to interact with the social environment and is in turn shaped by those interchanges; that these reciprocally influence one another. By observing the deficits that appear when the system breaks down, we can learn about how it normally develops.
A psychological approach to understanding the social and language impairments in autism
International Review of Psychiatry, 1999
This paper surveys current research on the social and communicative impairments in autism. In diagnostic schemes, the criteria for identifying autism in these domains include overlapping features. One approach to interpreting this overlap is to consider that social and communicative impairments reflect the same underlying cognitive deficit, referred to as the 'theory of mind' hypothesis of autism. On this view autism involves primary difficulties in identifying mental states in other people, and in interpreting behavior and action in relation to a person's mental state. Studies on the relationship between social behavior, communicative functioning, and theory of mind in children with autism are reviewed, emphasizing the connections between these areas of impairment that are central to the definition of the autistic syndrome.