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- Bäckström, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Action planning in relation to movement performance in 6-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder
- 2019
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Recent research proposes problems with action planning as part of atypical motor functioning in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), although findings are inconsistent. This study investigated relations between action planning and movement performance in 6-year-old children with and without ASD.Patients and methods: 3D kinematic recordings of preferred arm/hand performance on a sequential peg rotation task with varying complexity of goal insertion (four endpoints and either visual or occluded goal display at onset) were conducted in 6 children with ASD (MAge = 6.4) and 6 typically developing (TD) controls (MAge = 6.5).Results: Analyses revealed significant (p < .05) group and task-endpoint differences for movement segmentation (number of movement units, MUs) and 3D movement distance. Children with ASD generally displayed more MUs and longer distances than controls and all children showed increased MUs and movement distance on more complex task-endpoints. TD controls showed significantly shorter movement initiation latency (MIL) durations than ASD in the visual condition and evidently longer MILs in the occluded than visual condition. In contrast, no difference between goal display conditions was shown for the ASD group.Conclusion: Children with ASD generally had longer movement distances and more segmented movements than controls, suggesting less efficient movement performance. Movement performance was not evidently affected by goal display condition in either group. However, the lack of MIL differences between goal display conditions within the ASD group indicates reduced pre-planning, possibly affecting movement execution efficiency.
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| 3. |
- Bäckström, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Atypical motor planning in an interpersonal context in 9-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
- 2023
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Ingår i: 35th EACD Annual meeting European Academy of Childhood Disability. - : European Academy of Childhood Disability. ; , s. 254-254
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Motor planning deviances may negatively affect interpersonal motor interactions in ASD, although detailed studies are sparse. This study examined motor planning kinematics in an interpersonal and non-interpersonal context in 9-year-old children with ASD and neurotypical peers.Patients and methods: Twelve children with ASD and 17 controls performed two different sequential manual tasks (preferred hand): grasping and placing a peg on a wooden disc (non-interpersonal) or in the hand of an examiner (interpersonal). Three-dimensional kinematic recordings of arm/hand movements were performed. Group and task differences were explored for total movement duration (MD), and for peak velocity (PV) and placement of peak velocity (PPV) during reach-to-grasp and transport-to-place movements, respectively.Results: Task differences were found in terms of longer MD and higher transport-to-place-PV in the disc- compared to hand-task. An interaction effect was evident for reach-to-grasp-PPV, where the control-group, but not ASD, had earlier reach-to-grasp-PPV and longer relative deceleration in the hand-task compared to the disc-task.Conclusion: Results show that the interpersonal context influenced initial reach-to-grasp motor planning in the control-group, but not the ASD-group. Later in the sequential movement (transport-to-place), the interpersonal context seemed to influence motor planning independent of group. Taken together, this indicates support towards a more careful peg-placing in the interpersonal hand-task in the control-group but much less clearly so in the ASD-group.Relevance for users and families: Atypical motor planning may influence motor interaction with peers. Investigations of motor planning and movement organization in ASD could thus inform interventions also targeting interpersonal exchange.
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| 5. |
- Bäckström, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Motor imagery ability in 7-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder
- 2020
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Introduction: Knowledge about motor imagery (MI) ability in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is limited and inconclusive in young children with ASD. The aim of the current study was to investigate MI ability in 7-year-old children with ASD.Patients and methods: Thirteen children with ASD and 13 typically developing (TD) children performed a computerized hand laterality judgement task (HLJ) and a non-corporeal visual imagery (VI) control task. All participants passing a criterion test performed the tasks with images at 4 different rotational increments to vary the MI biomechanical demands (HLJ task) or VI angle rotational demands (VI task). Response times (RT) and accuracy were extracted.Results: Four children with ASD did not pass the HLJ criterion test and one failed the VI criterion test. The ASD-group had evidently more incorrect responses than TD on both tasks. Analyses of RT showed a biomechanical effect in the MI task and an angle increment effect in the VI task in both groups. Children with ASD had longer RT than TD children on VI but not MI tasks. Conclusion: Findings suggest that both the ASD and control children used MI to solve the HLJ task. However, failures to pass the HLJ criterion test and the increased error rate in the ASD group indicate that MI ability is weaker in young children with autism than TD controls. Notably, a large individual variability in employment of MI within the ASD group was found, ranging from functional, fractional but existing, to absent MI ability.
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| 7. |
- Bäckström, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Motor planning and movement execution during goal-directed sequential manual movements in 6-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder : A kinematic analysis
- 2021
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Ingår i: Research in Developmental Disabilities. - : Elsevier. - 0891-4222 .- 1873-3379. ; 115
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Atypical motor functioning is prevalent in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Knowledge of the underlying kinematic properties of these problems is sparse.Aims: To investigate characteristics of manual motor planning and performance difficulties/diversity in children with ASD by detailed kinematic measurements. Further, associations between movement parameters and cognitive functions were explored.Methods and procedures: Six-year-old children with ASD (N = 12) and typically developing (TD) peers (N = 12) performed a sequential manual task comprising grasping and fitting a semi-circular peg into a goal-slot. The goal-slot orientation was manipulated to impose different motor planning constraints. Movements were recorded by an optoelectronic system.Outcomes and results: The ASD-group displayed less efficient motor planning than the TD-group, evident in the reach-to-grasp and transport kinematics and less proactive adjustments of the peg to the goal-slot orientations. The intra-individual variation of movement kinematics was higher in the ASD-group compared to the TD-group. Further, in the ASD-group, movement performance associated negatively with cognitive functions.Conclusions and implications: Planning and execution of sequential manual movements proved challenging for children with ASD, likely contributing to problems in everyday actions. Detailed kinematic investigations contribute to the generation of specific knowledge about the nature of atypical motor performance/diversity in ASD. This is of potential clinical relevance.
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| 8. |
- Bäckström, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Visuomotor integration in action planning in 7-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder
- 2022
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Ingår i: Specia issue: Abstracts of the 34th annual meeting of the European Academy of Childhood Disability (EACD) Barcelona, Spain 18-21 May 2022. - : Mac Keith Press. ; , s. 65-65
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Difficulties with action planning and visuomotor integration may contribute to atypical motorfunctioning in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), although detailed studies of sensorimotorintegration in action planning are sparse. This ongoing study investigates visuomotor integration in actionplanning in 7-year-old children with and without ASD.Patients and methods: A sub-sample of 6 children with ASD and 6 typically developing (TD) controls wereincluded. Recordings of gaze synchronized with 3D kinematic registration were made during performance of amanual sequential peg rotation task with variations in goal insertion complexity. Group differences and relations between movement duration and number of gaze shifts over the sequential movement phases(latency, reach-to-grasp, grasp, and transport-to-fit) were explored.Results: No significant group differences were found for either movement duration or number of gaze shifts.When controlling for the between-participants variance, total number of gaze shifts and number of gaze shiftsin reach-to-grasp were related to movement duration in the initial phases of the movement in the TD-group but not in the ASD-group.Conclusion: The results indicate that, whilst performance measures were similar between groups, the overallpattern of visuomotor integration was related to feed-forward movement processes in the sequentialmovement in the TD-group but not in the ASD-group. This finding adds support to previous suggestions thatvisuomotor integration underpinning action planning may operate differently in ASD. Synchronizedexamination of gaze and detailed movement registration appears as a promising methodology for detailed investigation of visuomotor integration in action planning.
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| 9. |
- Dahlström, Carolin, et al.
(författare)
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Uni- and bimanual goal-directed arm movement organization in children at 6-9 years : Effects of a preterm birth
- 2014
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Ingår i: Congress Programme. 1st Clinical Movement Analysis Word Conference. ; , s. 110-110
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- INTRODUCTION and AIMPsychomotor deficits are more commonly reported among children born preterm (PT) than those born full-term (FT). Further, evidence exists for more covert motor problems in children born preterm at school age [1]. Such findings may be associated with a more immature spatiotemporal model of movements and lower cognitive functioning in children born PT than FT [2]. The main aim of this study was to investigate the effects of gestational age (GA) on uni- and bimanual goal-directed arm movement organization and on cognitive functioning in children at school age.PATIENTS/MATERIALS and METHODSParticipants consisted of 88 children between 6-9 years of age (M = 7.7 years; 40 PT, 19 girls; 48 FT, 22 girls) without known developmental delays or deviations. Children born PT were divided into two subgroups: moderately PT (M-PT), 34-36 weeks’ gestation (GW), and very PT (V-PT), < 34 GW. Movement kinematics were examined during performance of a goal-directed task, where the participants pushed three buttons in a sequential order in two different directions (vertical or horizontal) with either the right or left hand (unimanual) and with both hands simultaneously (bimanual). Movements were recorded by a 6-camera movement registration system (240Hz, ProReflex) and the number of movement units (MUs) was derived from head, shoulders, elbow, and wrist movement velocity profiles. Cognitive function in terms of verbal IQ (VIQ) and full scale IQ (FSIQ) was measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 4th edition (WISC-IV).RESULTSOverall, a significant difference between the groups regarding number of MUs and FSIQ was found. In general, children born V-PT showed more MUs compared with the FT and M-PT group. Regardless of group, a significant higher amount of MUs was found in the bimanual condition than in the unimanual, and during horizontal movement performance in comparison with vertical. Furthermore, GA was significant negatively correlated with number of MUs for right and left wrist and right elbow, and also with FSIQ.DISCUSSION and CONCLUSIONSThese findings suggest that lower GAs are associated with both more segmented goal-directed arm movements as well as with lower general cognitive ability. During the more demanding tasks, i.e. bimanual and horizontal movements, this association became particularly evident, where the children born V-PT exhibited the greatest difficulties. Thus, this indicate immature spatio-temporal movement organization as a long-lasting effect of risk factors associated with a preterm birth, specifically for children born V-PT, that may be related to lower cognitive function. Further, limitations in kinematic degrees of freedom, leading to restricted amounts of solutions when solving a motor task, may also partly explain these findings.REFERENCES[1] Bracewell, M. & Marlow, N. (2002). Patterns of motor disability in very preterm children. Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 8(4), 241-248.[2] Domellöf, E., Johansson, A-M., Farooqi, A., Domellöf M. & Rönnqvist, L. (2013). Relations among upper-limb movement organization and cognitive function at school age in children born preterm. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 34(5), 344-352.
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