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Hammering that Nail: Varied Praxis Motor Skills in Younger Autistic Children

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Abstract

Previous studies measuring praxis abilities in young autistic children have only used praxis measures that were not optimised for autistic individuals. Hence, we used the FAB-R to measure praxis skills in autistic (n = 38) and typically developing (TD) children (n = 38) aged between four and 10 years. Praxis abilities were generally not different between autistic and TD children. However, total dyspraxia and errors during verbal command and tool use were impaired in autistic children from a specialist autistic school (SAS). In contrast, autistic participants from the GC typically did not differ in praxis performance compared to controls. Hence, praxis abilities significantly vary between autistic younger children. Exploring mediating influences of such variability is imperative.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the children, and parents and guardians who agreed to participate in this research study. Also, thank you to Nicholas Taylor, Zoe De Jong, Catherine Crucitti, Emma McAllister and Amber Hopper for assisting in data collection. Lastly, thank you to the representatives of the Autism specialist school for allowing us to recruit and test participants within your facilities. The authors have no conflict of interest nor received any grants in regards to this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, VIC, 3125, Australia

    Joel Crucitti, Christian Hyde & Mark A. Stokes

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  1. Joel Crucitti
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  2. Christian Hyde
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All authors contributed to the design, instrumentation and operationalisation, analysis, and interpretation of the data, as well as the drafting of the paper, with the primary author having recruited the participants and collected the data.

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Correspondence to Mark A. Stokes.

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Crucitti, J., Hyde, C. & Stokes, M.A. Hammering that Nail: Varied Praxis Motor Skills in Younger Autistic Children. J Autism Dev Disord 50, 3253–3262 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04136-4

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