Behavioral Own-Body-Transformations in Children and Adolescents With Typical Development, Autism Spectrum Disorder,...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Motor imitation involves perspective-taking, requiring mental body transformation from ego- to hetero-centered viewpoints.
• Impairments in own-body-transformation (OBT) and visual-spatial processing are noted in neurodevelopmental disorders like autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental coordination disorder (DCD).
• Previous research has not disentangled OBT impairments from visual-spatial deficits in interactive tasks for these populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate own-body-transformation (OBT) abilities in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental coordination disorder (DCD) within a visual-motor interactive task.
• To differentiate the impact of visual-spatial impairments on motor coordination and perspective-taking in ASD and DCD compared to typically developing (TD) individuals.
• To analyze factors influencing hetero-centered perspective performance, including age, task parameters, and diagnosis.

Main Methods:

• A behavioral paradigm involving 85 participants (39 TD, 29 ASD, 17 DCD), aged 6-19 years, interacting with a virtual tightrope walker (TW).
• The protocol distinguished between ego-centered and hetero-centered perspectives to assess own-body-transformation (OBT).
• Multivariate models were used to analyze the association between hetero-centered perspective scores and variables like age, TW orientation, latency, and diagnosis.

Main Results:

• Own-body-transformation (OBT) was challenging for children with ASD and DCD, as well as for TD children, when adopting a hetero-centered perspective.
• Hetero-centered perspective scores correlated with age, TW orientation, latency, and diagnosis. ASD and TD groups showed similar age-related improvements, unlike DCD, which was significantly impacted by visual-spatial impairments.
• Motor performance differed: DCD participants exhibited better movement amplitude than ASD participants, whose motor responses were less clear.

Conclusions:

• Perspective-changing in spatial environments is achievable for individuals with ASD, albeit with a developmental delay compared to TD children.
• Visual-spatial impairments in DCD significantly impede performance in tasks requiring perspective-taking and motor coordination.
• The study highlights distinct challenges in OBT and visual-spatial processing between ASD and DCD populations.