Motor functioning, exploration, visuospatial cognition and language development in preschool children with autism.
Fine-motor delays slow language growth in preschoolers with ASD, so adding hand-play and exploration tasks to speech sessions can speed communication gains.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Hellendoorn et al. (2015) watched preschoolers with autism and with general developmental delay for one school year.
They scored how well each child used hands and fingers to play and how much the child explored toys.
The team then looked at whether those early scores predicted later language test results.
What they found
Kids who moved their hands and fingers better at the start said and understood more words later.
Only the autism group showed a special link: more toy exploration also meant faster word gains.
In short, fine-motor delays acted like a brake on language growth for all preschoolers, but exploration gave an extra boost just to those with ASD.
How this fits with other research
de Campos et al. (2012) reviewed 18 papers and found that each risk group explores toys in its own way; our autism data fall neatly inside that picture.
Cohenour et al. (2026) seems to disagree: they saw toddlers with strong early expressive skills grow slower. The gap is age. Torrey studied babies under two; we studied two- to five-year-olds. Early talk at 18 months can fade, but motor play keeps helping later.
Brignell et al. (2018) lengthened the story. They tracked verbal ASD kids to age seven and found growth hinged on starting language and IQ, not on autism itself. Together the papers say: motor matters first, then initial language level takes over.
Why it matters
If a preschool client struggles to pinch, stack, or turn pages, weave those targets into every language activity. Hand-play wakes up the same brain paths needed for words. Add toy exploration games—shake, bang, open, close—to your mand or tact sessions. A few extra minutes of fine-motor fun may unlock faster communication gains this year.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
In order to understand typical and atypical developmental trajectories it is important to assess how strengths or weaknesses in one domain may be affecting performance in other domains. This study examined longitudinal relations between early fine motor functioning, visuospatial cognition, exploration, and language development in preschool children with ASD and children with other developmental delays/disorders. The ASD group included 63 children at T1 (Mage = 27.10 months, SD = 8.71) and 46 children at T2 (Mage = 45.85 months, SD = 7.16). The DD group consisted of 269 children at T1 (Mage = 17.99 months, SD = 5.59), and 121 children at T2 (Mag e= 43.51 months, SD = 3.81). A subgroup nested within the total sample was randomly selected and studied in-depth on exploratory behavior. This group consisted of 50 children, 21 children with ASD (Mage = 27.57, SD = 7.09) and 29 children with DD (Mage = 24.03 months, SD = 6.42). Fine motor functioning predicted language in both groups. Fine motor functioning was related to visuospatial cognition in both groups and related to object exploration, spatial exploration, and social orientation during exploration only in the ASD group. Visuospatial cognition and all exploration measures were related to both receptive and expressive language in both groups. The findings are in line with the embodied cognition theory, which suggests that cognition emerges from and is grounded in the bodily interactions of an agent with the environment. This study emphasizes the need for researchers and clinicians to consider cognition as emergent from multiple interacting systems.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2015 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2014.12.033