Further evidence of complex motor dysfunction in drug naive children with autism using automatic motion analysis of gait.
Kids with autism walk with measurable jerk and trunk wobble, hinting at built-in sensorimotor gaps you can spot in the hallway.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Hopkins et al. (2011) strapped motion-capture dots on drug-naive kids with autism. They walked across the lab while cameras tracked every joint.
The computer measured trunk sway, jerk, and how straight they walked. No medicine, no coaching—just pure walking data.
What they found
The kids walked like toy soldiers: stiff legs, wobbly trunk, and jerky starts and stops. They could not keep a straight line.
These gait problems showed up before any pills or therapy. The motor trouble is built-in, not side-effect.
How this fits with other research
Hasan et al. (2017) saw the same clumsy walk with force plates under the feet. Both labs agree: autism gait is unstable.
Gong et al. (2020) moved the lens to preschoolers and linked flat, uneven steps to worse social scores. Maria’s stiff gait grows into social gap.
Demello et al. (1992) first noticed odd standing sway. Maria’s 2011 motion cameras now give the numbers behind that old clinical hunch.
Why it matters
Watch your client walk before you write goals. Jerky, wide-arm gait can flag balance issues that spill into play and social games. Add trunk-stability drills or slow-motion walking practice to your plan. A five-second hallway walk tells you more than you think.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
In order to increase the knowledge of locomotor disturbances in children with autism, and of the mechanism underlying them, the objective of this exploratory study was to reliably and quantitatively evaluate linear gait parameters (spatio-temporal and kinematic parameters), upper body kinematic parameters, walk orientation and smoothness using an automatic motion analyser (ELITE systems) in drug naïve children with Autistic Disorder (AD) and healthy controls. The children with AD showed a stiffer gait in which the usual fluidity of walking was lost, trunk postural abnormalities, highly significant difficulties to maintain a straight line and a marked loss of smoothness (increase of jerk index), compared to the healthy controls. As a whole, these data suggest a complex motor dysfunction involving both the cortical and the subcortical area or, maybe, a possible deficit in the integration of sensory-motor information within motor networks (i.e., anomalous connections within the fronto-cerebello-thalamo-frontal network). Although the underlying neural structures involved remain to be better defined, these data may contribute to highlighting the central role of motor impairment in autism and suggest the usefulness of taking into account motor difficulties when developing new diagnostic and rehabilitation programs.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2011 · doi:10.1177/1362361309356929