title: Failure in pantomime action execution correlates with the severity of social behavior deficits in children with autism: a praxis study.
abstract: Here we describe the performance of children with autism, their siblings, and typically developing children using the Florida Apraxia Battery. Children with autism showed the lowest performance in all sections of the test. They were mostly impaired in pantomime actions execution on imitation and on verbal command, and in imitation of meaningless gestures. Interestingly, a correlation was found between performance in pantomime actions and the severity of social behavior deficits. We conclude that the presence of a rigid internal model prevents the execution of an exact copy of the observed pantomime actions and that the deficit in imitation of meaningless gestures is most likely due to a deficit in the mechanisms responsible for visuomotor transformations.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Università di Parma, Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Valentina
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Gizzonio
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Università di Parma, Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Pietro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Avanzini
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Università di Parma, Parma, Italy.|CNR-SPIN, Genoa, Italy.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Campi
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Università di Parma, Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Orivoli
authors.affiliation: Child Neuropsychiatry Unit, Department of Neuroscience, University Hospital of Parma, Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Benedetta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Piccolo
authors.affiliation: Child Neuropsychiatry, Department of Life and Reproduction Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy.
authors.forename: Gaetano
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cantalupo
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Università di Parma, Parma, Italy.|University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: Carlo Alberto
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Tassinari
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Università di Parma, Parma, Italy.|Brain Center for Social and Motor Cognition, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, via Volturno 39/E, 43125, Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Giacomo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rizzolatti
authors.affiliation: Brain Center for Social and Motor Cognition, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, via Volturno 39/E, 43125, Parma, Italy. maddalena.fabbridestro@iit.it.
authors.forename: Maddalena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fabbri-Destro
mesh_terms: D001072:Apraxias / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012919:Social Behavior
keywords: Children with autism; Florida Apraxia Battery; Imitation; Meaningless gestures; Motor deficits; Pantomime action