Reframing Body Representations in Autistic Individuals: A Systematic Review.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Autism Research

Background:

• Body representations (BR) are crucial for functioning, including body schema (BS) for movement and body image (BI) for conscious experience.
• Autism involves BR alterations impacting sensory, motor, social, and self-perception domains, but their structure is unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish a conceptual framework for BR in autism.
• Identify key BR differences in autistic individuals compared to neurotypical groups.
• Synthesize evidence on assessment methods and clinical relevance.

Main Methods:

• Systematic review following PRISMA guidelines.
• Analysis of 54 studies (2000-2025) with 2982 participants.
• Focus on sensorimotor dimensions (interoception, proprioception) and body image.

Main Results:

• Predominance of BS research (81%), especially sensorimotor aspects.
• BI research is limited but suggests links to body dissatisfaction and identity issues.
• Commonly reported differences in bodily awareness, movement, emotion, and self-perception.

Conclusions:

• BR is clinically significant in autism but under-researched.
• Methodological limitations include construct heterogeneity and over-reliance on self-reports.
• Need for comprehensive, developmentally sensitive, multimodal assessment approaches in autism BR research.