Planning actions in autism.
It has been suggested that the deficit in understanding others' intention in autism depends on a malfunctioning of the mirror system. This malfunction could be due either to a deficit of the basic mirror mechanism or to a disorganization of chained action organization on which the mirror understanding of others' intention is based. Here we tested this last hypothesis investigating the kinematics of intentional actions. Children with autism and typically developing children (TD) were asked to execute two actions consisting each of three motor acts: the first was identical in both actions while the last varied for its difficulty. The result showed that, unlike in TD children, in children with autism the kinematics of the first motor act was not modulated by the task difficulty. This finding strongly supports the notion that children with autism have a deficit in chaining motor acts into a global action.
Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Università di Parma, Via Volturno 39, 43100, Parma, Italy.
Maddalena
M
Fabbri-Destro
Luigi
L
Cattaneo
Sonia
S
Boria
Giacomo
G
Rizzolatti
D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D019957:Motor Skills Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012919:Social Behavior; D012920:Social Behavior Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D014836:Volition / Q000502:physiology*