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Evaluating the importance of social motor synchronization and motor skill for understanding autism
Author(s) -
Fitzpatrick Paula,
Romero Veronica,
Amaral Joseph L.,
Duncan Amie,
Barnard Holly,
Richardson Michael J.,
Schmidt R. C.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
autism research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.656
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1939-3806
pISSN - 1939-3792
DOI - 10.1002/aur.1808
Subject(s) - autism , synchronization (alternating current) , psychology , autism spectrum disorder , social competence , developmental psychology , social skills , cognitive psychology , social change , computer science , computer network , channel (broadcasting) , economics , economic growth
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.