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How do Individuals with Autism Plan Their Movements?

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Abstract

Two experiments investigated how persons with and without autism plan manual aiming movements when advance information is direct and when strategic planning is required. In Experiment 1 advance information about hand, direction, and/or movement amplitude was manipulated. Reaction times suggested both groups adopted a hierarchical pattern of movement planning. In Experiment 2, participants performed aiming movements to one of two targets that were the same or different size. Participants without autism varied the starting location in anticipation of specific target stimuli whereas participants with autism consistently selected the midpoint. Overall, individuals with autism used advance information to plan their movements when this information was direct. However, their performance became stereotyped when strategies were self-generated.

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Notes

  1. Fitts law states that the time to execute an aiming movement is a function of the target amplitude and target width. Specifically MT = a + b log2ID where index of difficulty (ID) = 2 × target amplitude/target width.

  2. Participants returned on another day to complete a similar experiment where the start location was predetermined. This protocol allowed detailed kinematic analysis of the movements. A paper reporting the results of this study is published in Motor Control (Glazebrook et al., 2006).

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Autism Ontario, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Canada Research Chair Programme. We would like to thank John Moroz for his technical assistance, Victoria Dhillon and Melinda Wu for assisting with data collection. This research would not have been possible without the help of Robin Brennan, Dora Cheung, Rick Ludkin, the staff, and especially all of the participants from Woodview Manor in Hamilton, Ontario. Thank you!! A version of this manuscript was presented at the Canadian Society for Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology (Experiment 1) and the North American Society for Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity (Experiment 2).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Kinesiology, McMaster University, 1280 Main St West, Ivor Wynne Centre, AB108, L8S 4K1, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Cheryl M. Glazebrook & Digby Elliott

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Peter Szatmari

Authors
  1. Cheryl M. Glazebrook
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  2. Digby Elliott
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  3. Peter Szatmari
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Correspondence to Cheryl M. Glazebrook.

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Glazebrook, C.M., Elliott, D. & Szatmari, P. How do Individuals with Autism Plan Their Movements?. J Autism Dev Disord 38, 114–126 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0369-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0369-1

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