Intact Audiovisual Spatial Integration in Autistic Children.
Autistic kids copy fewer small non-facial actions and that copying does not signal friendship, so look elsewhere for signs of social connection.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Melegari et al. (2025) watched autistic and neurotypical kids play with an adult. They counted how often each child copied small, non-facial moves like tapping a pencil or swinging a leg.
The team also asked kids how close they felt to the adult. They wanted to see if copying these little actions was linked to feeling connected.
What they found
Autistic children copied fewer of these tiny non-facial actions than their typical peers. Their amount of copying did not relate to how friendly they felt toward the adult.
For neurotypical kids, more mimicry went hand-in-hand with more friendly feelings. That link was missing in the autism group.
How this fits with other research
Schulte-Rüther et al. (2017) found autistic kids copied facial expressions just fine when they were paying attention. G et al. now show the trouble is not with faces, but with the small body moves most people never notice.
Field et al. (2001) seems to disagree: they saw more social smiling and talking after an adult copied the child for several play sessions. The key difference is direction. In 2001 the adult copied the child; in 2025 the child copied the adult. Adult-to-child imitation may boost social sparks, but child-to-adult mimicry does not automatically create friendship.
Lundqvist (2026) extends the story: one year later the same lab showed reduced facial mimicry in high-functioning autistic teens. Together the two papers draw a line: spontaneous copying of both faces and body mannerisms is dampened in autism, and that dampening is not rescued by social warmth.
Why it matters
If you run social skills groups, do not assume a child who starts tapping when you tap is feeling closer to you. For typical kids that tiny echo often signals rapport; for autistic kids it may just be noise. Build connection through shared activities and clear reinforcement, not by waiting for subtle body echoes. When you model actions, make them big and explicit, and praise any attempt to join in rather than hunting for hidden mimicry.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Copying other people's mannerisms (i.e., mimicry) occurs spontaneously during social interactions, and is thought to contribute to sharing emotions, affiliation with partners and interaction quality. While previous research shows decreased mimicry of emotional facial expressions in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), we know relatively little about how non-emotional, non- facial behavioural mimicry manifests and, more importantly, what it means for autistic individuals' social interactions. In a controlled, semi-naturalistic interaction setting, this study examined how often autistic and neurotypical (NT) children mimicked a virtual partner's non-facial mannerisms as they engaged in an interactive story-telling activity. Subsequently, children reported how affiliated they felt towards their interaction partner using an established implicit measure of closeness and a set of questions. Results revealed reduced mimicry (p =.001, φ =0.38) and less affiliation (p =.01, φ =0.33) in ASD relative to NT children. Mimicry was associated with affiliation for NT (r(23) =0.64, p =.0009), but not ASD, children (r(31) =0.07, p =.72). These results suggest an autism-associated reduction in mimicry and that mimicry during social interactions may not substantially contribute to affiliation in autism.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.12.013