Broad Autism Phenotype and Gait in Parents of Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorder. Research has shown that parents and relatives of children with ASD often exhibit subthreshold ASD-like characteristics known as broad autism phenotype (BAP) as well as impairments in motor behaviours.

The current study aimed to examine the BAP traits and motor behaviours, that is, gait in 44 parents of children with ASD and in 48 parents of typically developing children (TD).

The BAP traits were measured using the broad autism phenotype questionnaire (BAPQ), and a low-cost computer vision-based framework was utilised to quantify the gait in children with ASD and their parents and TD children and their parents.

The parents of children with ASD consistently displayed significantly higher scores on rigid personality and pragmatic language, however, there were no significant differences between the two group of parents on aloof personality of BAP traits. On gait parameters, the parents of children with ASD had a reduced gait speed in comparison to parents of TD children. There were no meaningful similarities in gait parameters of children with ASD and their parents.

These findings support the presence of ASD-like traits in the parents of children with ASD and gait speed as a putative motor endophenotype of ASD.