Motor Skills as Moderators of Core Symptoms in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Preliminary Data From an Exploratory Analysis With Artificial Neural Networks (original) (raw)
Related papers
Australian Psychologist, 2016
Objectives: There is no medical test for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a heterogeneous condition currently defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5) by dysfunction in social, communication, and behavioural dimensions. There is agreement in the literature that the motor profile of ASD may hold the key to improving clinical and diagnostic definition, with DSM-5 now referring to motor deficits, including "odd gait" (p. 55), as part of the ASD clinical description. This review describes the history of motor impairment in ASD, types of motor problems, and age-related motor findings and highlights evidence gaps and future research. Method: A narrative review is provided of the research literature describing motor impairment in ASD and its ability to differentiate between ASD versus non-ASD cohorts. Results: Findings show differences in motor development in children with ASD from infancy onwards, including difficulties across motor coordination, arm movements, gait, and postural stability. Motor disturbance may appear in young children with ASD prior to social and language difficulties becoming clinically apparent. However, challenges remain in defining and measuring the early motor profile that is specific to ASD. Despite well-established motor impairments in ASD, there is a lack of evidence regarding which motor-based interventions will be effective in this group. Conclusions: Motor impairment holds promise as an early diagnostic sign, a behavioural marker, and a means by which to improve identification and possibly phenotypic delineation in ASD. Further research is required to determine whether motor abnormalities can sensitively differentiate ASD from other developmental conditions and to establish evidenced-based interventions to reduce the associated impairment.
Motor Characteristics of Young Children Referred for Possible Autism Spectrum Disorder
Pediatric Physical Therapy, 2012
Purpose: To examine motor characteristics of children referred for evaluation for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition (BSID-III). Methods: BSID-III scores were collected through retrospective chart review for 30 children (mean age = 31.57 ± 6 months) admitted to an outpatient autism evaluation clinic. Results: Children referred to an ASD clinic demonstrated a mean delay of 6 months for gross motor skills and 8 months for fine motor skills. There were no differences in total score or item analysis in group comparisons of motor characteristics in young children who did or did not receive a diagnosis of ASD. Conclusions: These results suggest that a delay in fine and gross motor skills at an early age is a characteristic of infants referred to an ASD clinic. Furthermore, the BSID-III may not be sensitive enough to distinguish between referred children with and without ASD.
Motor Skills and Calibrated Autism Severity in Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder
Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 2014
In addition to the core characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), motor skill deficits are present, persistent, and pervasive across age. Although motor skill deficits have been indicated in young children with autism, they have not been included in the primary discussion of early intervention content. One hundred fifty-nine young children with a confirmed diagnosis of ASD (n = 110), PDD-NOS (n = 26), and non-ASD (n = 23) between the ages of 14–33 months participated in this study.1 The univariate general linear model tested the relationship of fine and gross motor skills and social communicative skills (using calibrated autism severity scores). Fine motor and gross motor skills significantly predicted calibrated autism severity (p < .05). Children with weaker motor skills have greater social communicative skill deficits. Future directions and the role of motor skills in early intervention are discussed.
Motor deficits in children with autism spectrum disorder: a cross-syndrome study
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2014
Recent research suggests that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience some level of motor difficulty, and that this may be associated with social communication skills. However, other studies show that children with language impairments, but without the social communication problems, are at risk of motor difficulties as well. The aim of the present study was to determine if children with ASD have syndrome-specific motor deficits in comparison to children with specific language impairment (SLI). We used an independent groups design with three groups of children (8-10 years old) matched on age and nonverbal IQ: an ASD group, an SLI group, and a typically developing (TD) group. All of the children completed an individually administered, standardized motor assessment battery. We found that the TD group demonstrated significantly better motor skills than either the ASD or SLI groups. Detailed analyses of the motor subtests revealed that the ASD and SLI groups had very simi...
Frontiers in Psychology, 2016
Recent research shows that motor difficulties are a prominent component of the behavioral profile of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and are also apparent from early in development in infants who have an older sibling with ASD (High Risk; HR). Delays have been reported for HR infants who do and who do not receive an eventual diagnosis of ASD. A growing body of prospective studies has focused on the emergence of early motor skills primarily during the first year of life. To date, however, relatively little work has examined motor skills in the second and third years. Thus, the present research was designed to investigate motor performance in object transport tasks longitudinally in HR and LR (Low Risk) children between the ages of 18 and 36 months. Participants (15 HR children and 14 LR children) were observed at 18, 24, and 36 months. Children completed two motor tasks, the Ball Task and the Block Task, each of which included two conditions that varied in terms of the precision demands of the goal action. Kinematic data were acquired via two magneto inertial sensors worn on each wrist. In the Block Task, HR children reached more slowly (i.e., mean acceleration was lower) compared to LR children. This finding is in line with growing evidence of early delays in fine motor skills in HR children and suggests that vulnerabilities in motor performance may persist into the preschool years in children at risk for ASD.
Motor skills of children with autistic spectrum disorder
SHS Web of Conferences, 2016
The contribution contains results of a research of motor skills of children with autistic spectrum disorder. The group of children represents besides major triad of symptoms, also described difficulties in the field of motor skills. Our aim to find out what motor skills of these children are in comparison with intact population and what differences are found in individual motor items, i.e. in fine motor skills, gross motor skills and in balance. The data was gained with the use of standardized Movement Assessment Battery test for Children 2 (MABC-2). Objective testing of this group of children is relatively difficult. There were successfully tested 36 children with ASD during this phase of research. The research demonstrated evident motor disorder at 86% of children in the observed sample. Statistically significant were worse results in the field of fine motor skills compared to the results in gross motor skills and balance.
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2007
This study assessed motor delay in young children 21–41 months of age with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and compared motor scores in children with ASD to those of children without ASD. Fifty-six children (42 boys, 14 girls) were in three groups: children with ASD, children with developmental delay (DD), and children with developmental concerns without motor delay. Descriptive analysis showed all children with ASD had delays in gross motor skills, fine motor skills, or both. Children with ASD and children with DD showed significant impairments in motor development compared to children who had developmental concerns without motor delay. Motor scores of young children with ASD did not differ significantly on motor skill measures when compared to young children with DD.
Neuropsychological investigation of motor impairments in autism
It is unclear how standardized neuropsychological measures of motor function relate to brain volumes of motor regions in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). An all-male sample composed of 59 ASD and 30 controls (ages 5-33 years) completed three measures of motor function: strength of grip (SOG), finger tapping test (FTT), and grooved pegboard test (GPT). Likewise, all participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging with region of interest (ROI) volumes obtained to include the following regions: motor cortex (precentral gyrus), somatosensory cortex (postcentral gyrus), thalamus, basal ganglia, cerebellum, and caudal middle frontal gyrus. These traditional neuropsychological measures of motor function are assumed to differ in motor complexity, with GPT requiring the most followed by FTT and SOG. Performance by ASD participants on the GPT and FTT differed significantly from that of controls, with the largest effect size differences observed on the more complex GPT task. Differences on the SOG task between the two groups were nonsignificant. Since more complex motor tasks tap more complex networks, poorer GPT performance by those with ASD may reflect less efficient motor networks. There was no gross pathology observed in classic motor areas of the brain in ASD, as ROI volumes did not differ, but FTT was negatively related to motor cortex volume in ASD. The results suggest a hierarchical motor disruption in ASD, with difficulties evident only in more complex tasks as well as a potential anomalous size-function relation in motor cortex in ASD.
Motor skills in children aged 7–10 years, diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder
This study used the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (M-ABC2) to assess motor skills in children aged 7-10 years with autism (n = 18) in comparison to two groups of age-matched typically developing children; a receptive vocabulary matched group (n = 19) and a nonverbal IQ matched group (n = 22). The results supported previous work, as indicated by a significant general motor impairment in the group with autism. However, sub-analysis of the M-ABC2 revealed that there were only 2 out of 8 subcomponent skills which showed universal significant specific deficits for the autism group; i.e. catching a ball and static balance. These results suggest that motor skill deficits associated with autism may not be pervasive but more apparent in activities demanding complex, interceptive actions or core balance ability.
Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2013
Objective-To determine the relationship of motor skills and the core behaviors of young children with autism, social affective skills and repetitive behaviors, as indicated through the calibrated autism severity scores. Design-The univariate GLM tested the relationship of gross and fine motor skills measured by the gross motor scale and the fine motor scale of the MSEL with autism symptomology as measured by calibrated autism severity scores. Setting-Majority of the data collected took place in an autism clinic. Participants-A cohort of 159 young children with ASD (n=110), PDD-NOS (n=26) and non-ASD (developmental delay, n=23) between the ages of 12-33 months were recruited from early intervention studies and clinical referrals. Children with non-ASD (developmental delay) were included in this study to provide a range of scores indicted through calibrated autism severity. Interventions-Not applicable.