title: Motor and verbal perspective taking in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Changes in social interaction with people and tools.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulty communicating with others nonverbally, via mechanisms such as hand gestures, eye contact and facial expression. Individuals with ASD also have marked deficits in planning future actions (Hughes, 1996), which might contribute to impairments in non-verbal communication. Perspective taking is typically assessed using verbal scenarios whereby the participant imagines how an actor would interact in a social situation (e.g., Sally Anne task; Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985).
  
  
  METHODS
  The current project evaluated motor perspective taking in five children with ASD (8-11 years old) as they participated in a narrative intervention program over the course of about 16 weeks. The goal of the motor perspective-taking task was to facilitate the action of an experimenter either hammering with a tool or putting it away.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Initially, children with ASD facilitated the experimenter's action less than neurotypical control children. As the narrative intervention progressed, children with ASD exhibited increased motor facilitation that paralleled their increased use of mental state and causal language, indicating a link between verbal and motor perspective taking.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Motoric perspective taking provides an additional way to assess understanding and communication in children with ASD and may be a valuable tool for both early assessment and diagnosis of children with ASD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health, Physical Education, & Recreation, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322, USA. Electronic address: breanna.studenka@usu.edu.
authors.forename: Breanna E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Studenka
authors.affiliation: Department of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322, USA. Electronic address: sandi.gillam@usu.edu.
authors.forename: Sandra L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Gillam
authors.affiliation: Department of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322, USA. Electronic address: dhartz4@lsu.edu.
authors.forename: Daphne
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hartzheim
authors.affiliation: Department of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322, USA. Electronic address: ron.gillam@usu.edu.
authors.forename: Ronald B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Gillam
mesh_terms: D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D042241:Early Diagnosis; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008369:Manual Communication; D009048:Motor Skills; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014705:Verbal Behavior
keywords: Asd; End-state comfort; Motor planning; Narrative intervention; Perspective taking; Verbal perspective