Motor Imagery of Typical and High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder Children: Developmental Changes

There are significant interactions between motor and cognitive development through life span. Investigation of cognitive processes and behavioral infrastructure is very valuable, so the present study aimed to determine the developmental changes of motor imagery in typical and high functioning autism spectrum disorder children aged 8 to 12 years.

The present study was a semi- quasi one that done in a cross - sectional design. 40 children aged 8 to 10 and 40 children aged 10 to 12 years (in each age group 20 autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 20 typical development (TD)), who matched in terms of age and IQ, were selected purposefully and accessibly selected and participated in the research voluntarily. To investigate the motor imagery, the hand rotation paradigm was used in the form of 3-D software. After calculating the reaction time and the number of errors related to the medial and lateral stimuli, repeated measures ANOVA used to analyze the reaction time data and the Mann Whitney U test used to analyze the error numbers data. All statistical tests were performed using SPSS software version 21.

The findings showed that the typical development (TD) group decreased its reaction time (P=0.001) and number of errors (P=0.001) by age increasing, which was not seen in the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) group.

It seems that the cognitive and important processes involved in learning and controlling motor skills will not improve by age and will require specialized interventions and coherent programs for this purpose.