Laine, F., Rauzy, S., Tardif, C., Gepner, B. (2010). Slowing down the presentation of facial and body movements enhances imitation performance in children with severe autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 41, 983-996.
The authors of this article comment that documented observations from the past 40 years according to DeMeyere and colleagues (1972) have noted imitation difficulties of gestures and actions among individuals with autism. Laine and collegues cite the work of Nadel (2006) who suggested that impaired imitation might contribute to poor imitation and social skills among children with autism. The authors hypothesize that decreasing the speed of movements presented might increase performance of imitative acts.
The focus of the study was “on the physical aspect of imitation rather than on its meaning or familiarity” of the action performed (p. 984). The authors point out the role of perception as indicated by emerging data performed with functional imaging, which has suggested problems of on-line neurologic processing.
Participants in this study included 19 children with classic autism (4 girls and 15 boys, and excluded Asperger’s syndrome or PDD-NOS) aged 6.4-17.6, and two comparison groups that included 27 neuro-typical children (which were split in to additional groups based on assessment scores), and 17 children with Down syndrome. Assessment batteries allowed for the children with autism to be individual matched with the noted counterparts.
The children with autism were assessed for severity with the Childhood Autism Rating Scale scores (CARS), and additional batteries included a Verbal Mental Age Assessment (VMA), a non-verbal Mental Age Assessment (NVMA), The Progressive Matrix Coloured-Test (PMC-T), and the Kaufman-Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC). Ultimately the participatns were split into the following groups, children with autism (n = 19), neuro-typical children VMA scores (n = 19), neuro-typical children NVMA scores (n = 18), and children with Down syndrome (n = 17).
The participants were tested individual in a private room where they sat in front of a computer screen with a model displaying 20 different facial and body gestures with no-meaning. The gestures were recorded and quantized to play at two different slower speeds, “slow” and “very slow” (p. 988). An experimenter scored the imitations of the gestures based on completeness of imitation – from beginning to end of a sequence. The score was based on a 0-2 point system for each gesture, with a total score of 0-120.
The results compared the three groups of autism according to the CARS scores and revealed that participants with mild autism performed better than participants with both moderate and severe forms of autism. The main findings indicated that children with autism performed almost just as well as those with Down syndrome, but significantly worse than neuro-typical children. The children with autism did not show a difference in imitation performance when the gestures were slowed, yet the children with severe forms of autism performed slightly better when the stimuli was slowed.
An interesting thought that the researchers present in the discussion is the question as to whether the children would have performed differently if the stimuli did not involve a person – as the perceptual experience may have been disrupted by its social underpinnings. In conclusion the authors note that slowing down visual information may assist some children and adolescents with imitation abilities.
In my personal experience as a music therapist – children with autism who are presented with auditory stimuli are able to imitate readily, however since this study focuses on visual stimuli one may consider the role of visual-motor versus auditory-motor relationships in the brain of the individual with autism.
In my conclusion I believe that article has a strong literature review; it is concise, well written, and informs the reader of the brief history of impairment imitation among individuals with autism. The methodology in my opinion in quite complex, there were many comparison groups, which leads me to many questions, and yielded data for possible additional investigations. I am mainly interested in seeing a comparison of the three sub-groups of children with autism and how they perform with the imitation of acts produced at two different speeds only. Additionally, I would also like a greater description of the testing room and the model on the computer. For example were there lights in the room… did the video that represented the model have sound…did the children have a history with the model? I would also be curious to know what gestures the children responded best to, facial or body? The appendix offers a list of the actions that were performed, and the sources of the gestures with references included.
All in all, I thought this was a thorough investigation – and I look forward to seeing more work on this topic, particularly in comparison to visual and auditory imitation among this population.
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