Journal Article

Eye-Hand Coordination in Children with High Functioning Autism and Asperger’s Disorder Using a Gap-Overlap Paradigm

Perego, Paolo, Molteni, Massimo, Crippa, Alessandro, Forti, Sara

2013

Overview

We investigated eye-hand coordination in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in comparison with age-matched normally developing peers. The eye-hand correlation was measured by putting fixation latencies in relation with pointing and key pressing responses in visual detection tasks where a gap-overlap paradigm was used and compared to fixation latencies in absence of manual response. ASD patients showed less efficient eye-hand coordination, which was particularly evident when pointing towards a target was being fixated. The data of normally developing participants confirmed that manual gap effects are more likely for more complex hand movements. An important discrepancy was discovered in participants with ASD: beside normal eye gap effects, they showed no concurrent hand gap effects when pointing to targets. This result has been interpreted as a further sign of inefficient eye-hand coordination in this patient population.

• Publisher: Springer US,Springer,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Asperger Syndrome / Asperger Syndrome - physiopathology / Asperger's syndrome / Attention / Autism / Autism Spectrum Disorders / Autistic children / Autistic Disorder - physiopathology / Autistic spectrum disorders / Behavioral Science and Psychology / Biological and medical sciences / Child / Child and School Psychology / Child clinical studies / Child, Preschool / Children / Comparative Analysis / Complications and side effects / Coordination / Correlation / Data processing / Developmental disorders / Disorders / Eye - physiopathology / Eye Movements / Eye-hand coordination / Feedback (Response) / Female / Fixation / Fixation, Ocular / Hand - physiopathology / Hand eye coordination / Hand movements / Hands / High functioning / Human Body / Humans / Infantile autism / Interpersonal Relationship / Latency / Male / Medical sciences / Neurodevelopmental disorders / Neuropsychological Tests / Neurosciences / Paradigms / Patients / Pediatrics / Perceptual Motor Coordination / Pervasive Developmental Disorders / Physiological aspects / Pointing / Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Psychology / Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry / Psychomotor Performance - physiology / Psychomotor Skills / Psychopathology. Psychiatry / Public Health / Reaction Time - physiology / Withdrawal (Psychology)