Brief report: Imitation of meaningless gestures in individuals with Asperger Syndrome and high-functioning autism

Heidi Stieglitz Ham; Martin Corley; Gnanathusharan Rajendran; Jean Carletta; Sara Swanson

doi:10.1007/s10803-007-0417-x

Brief report: Imitation of meaningless gestures in individuals with Asperger Syndrome and high-functioning autism

Heidi Stieglitz Ham, Martin Corley, Gnanathusharan Rajendran, Jean Carletta, Sara Swanson

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Nineteen people with Asperger syndrome (AS)/High-Functioning Autism (HFA) (ages 7-15) were tested on imitation of two types of meaningless gesture: hand postures and finger positions. The individuals with AS/HFA achieved lower scores in the imitation of both hand and finger positions relative to a matched neurotypical group. The between-group difference was primarily accounted for by performance on a test of visual motor integration, together with a hand imitation deficit which was specifically due to errors in body part orientation. Our findings implicate both visuomotor processes (Damasio and Maurer, 1978) and self-other mapping (Rogers and Pennington, 1991) in ASD imitation deficits. Following Goldenberg (1999), we propose that difficulties with body part orientation may underlie problems in meaningless gesture imitation.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	569-573
Number of pages	5
Journal	Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
Volume	38
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0417-x
Publication status	Published - Mar 2008

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

autism spectrum disorder
ASD
autism
Asperger syndrome
imitation
meaningless gestures

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10.1007/s10803-007-0417-x

Stieglitz_Ham_et_al_2008Accepted author manuscript, 108 KB

http://www.springerlink.com/content/p361206715w435k0/

Cite this

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title = "Brief report: Imitation of meaningless gestures in individuals with Asperger Syndrome and high-functioning autism",

abstract = "Nineteen people with Asperger syndrome (AS)/High-Functioning Autism (HFA) (ages 7-15) were tested on imitation of two types of meaningless gesture: hand postures and finger positions. The individuals with AS/HFA achieved lower scores in the imitation of both hand and finger positions relative to a matched neurotypical group. The between-group difference was primarily accounted for by performance on a test of visual motor integration, together with a hand imitation deficit which was specifically due to errors in body part orientation. Our findings implicate both visuomotor processes (Damasio and Maurer, 1978) and self-other mapping (Rogers and Pennington, 1991) in ASD imitation deficits. Following Goldenberg (1999), we propose that difficulties with body part orientation may underlie problems in meaningless gesture imitation.",

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AU - Swanson, Sara

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Brief report: Imitation of meaningless gestures in individuals with Asperger Syndrome and high-functioning autism

Abstract

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

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