The relationships between motor skills and executive functions in children with and without autism spectrum disorder.
Autistic school-age kids show a tighter motor-EF bond than peers, so motor drills can double as stealth EF training.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team compared two groups of late-elementary kids: autistic and neurotypical.
They gave each child the same motor test and the same executive-function (EF) test.
Then they looked at how tightly motor scores lined up with EF scores in each group.
What they found
Autistic kids scored lower on both motor and EF tasks.
The big news: the link between motor skill and EF was stronger in the autistic group.
In plain words, when an autistic child struggled with balance or ball skills, their working memory or shifting was also likely to lag.
How this fits with other research
Papadopoulos et al. (2012) saw the same motor gaps a decade earlier, but tied them to emotional problems instead of EF.
Garon et al. (2018) and Nittrouer et al. (2016) showed EF deficits in preschoolers with ASD; Chien-Yu et al. now show those EF gaps still matter in older kids and couple tightly with motor skill.
Day et al. (2021) tracked physical activity dropping in autistic youth; the new data hint one reason may be that poor motor coordination and weak EF together make sports harder to join and stick with.
Why it matters
If you run PE, recess, or OT sessions, weave in quick EF challenges right after motor drills.
Think: balance beam walk then a Stroop color naming race.
The tight motor-EF link means you could get two skills for the price of one practice block.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add a 30-second rule-switch game right after each motor station—kids hopscotch forward, then hop the same pattern backward on command.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
To date, information on associations between motor skills and executive functions (EF) in autistic children is limited. The purpose of this study was to compare motor skills and EF performance between autistic children and typically developing (TD) children and to examine the relationships between motor skills and EF in these two groups. Forty-eight autistic children and 48 TD children aged 6 to 12 years were recruited for this study. Motor skills were measured with the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency-2 (BOT-2). EF was assessed with the Stroop Color and Word Test, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST), and the Test of Attentional Performance: Go/No-go test. Independent sample t-tests were used to compare the BOT-2 scores and EF measures between autistic children and TD children. Pearson product-moment correlation and regressions were conducted to assess the relationships between the BOT-2 scores and the EF measures for each group. Results showed that autistic children scored significantly lower than TD children on all four BOT-2 composite scores and a total motor composite. Autistic children also demonstrated significantly lower levels of performance on all EF measures than TD children. Further, autistic children showed more significant associations between motor skills and EF than TD children, particularly pronounced in the domains of fine manual control and manual coordination to cognitive flexibility, as well as manual coordination and inhibitory control. Continued development of motor skills and EF in autistic children is important. The relationships between motor skills and EF were significant among autistic children, suggesting future research on promoting EF through motor skill interventions in autistic children is required.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2024 · doi:10.1002/aur.3136