Abstract
Visual information is crucial for postural control. Visual processing in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was hypothesized to be less efficient and thus they would display a less stable standing posture than typically developing children. The present study compared the static standing responses and attentional demands of 15 children with ASD and 18 control participants in conditions of eyes open and eyes closed. The results showed that postural responses and attention invested in standing were similar between the participant groups in the two visual conditions. Both groups displayed a more stable posture when their eyes were open in comparison to eyes closed. The finding suggests that normal postural control development could occur in children with ASD.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship, Curtin University Hub for Immersive Visualisation and eResearch, and Telethon Kids Institute in supporting this research. The authors would also like to thank all participants and their families who took part in this study. We gratefully acknowledge the considerable assistance and technical guides of Dr Alex Goh, Dr Richard Parsons, Professor Andrew Whitehouse, Dr Kandice Varcin, Dr Andrew Woods, Paul Davey, Jesse Helliwell, and Joshua Hollick.
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YHL participated in thes conception and design of the study, coordination and acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of the data, and drafted the manuscript. HCL, TF, GA, TT, WLL, and SM participated in the design of the study, interpretation of the data, and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Lim, Y.H., Lee, H.C., Falkmer, T. et al. Effect of Visual Information on Postural Control in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 50, 3320–3325 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04182-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04182-y