Motor Performance in Autistic Youth From Childhood Through Adolescence: Evidence for Both Sustained and Widening Group Differences.
Strength deficits in autistic clients widen fast during the teen years, so build quick power moves into every session.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team tracked motor skills in autistic and non-autistic youth. They followed the same kids from childhood into the teen years.
They looked at strength, balance, speed, and coordination. Tests were the same at every age so scores could be compared.
What they found
Strength gaps got bigger as kids became teens. Autistic youth fell further behind in grip, core, and leg power.
Other motor skills stayed about the same. Ceiling effects on easy tasks may hide later problems.
How this fits with other research
Hudry et al. (2020) asked for long-term motor data. This study gives exactly that timeline.
Gabis et al. (2020) and Matheis et al. (2019) show preschool girls with autism have more motor delay than boys. The new data say the delay keeps growing through adolescence for all kids.
Waldron et al. (2023) found less muscle activity in older autistic adults. Together the papers trace a life-long arc: early gaps widen in the teens and stay wide in adulthood.
Why it matters
If you write teen programs, add short strength circuits. Use resistance bands, body-weight squats, or medicine-ball games. Two ten-minute blocks a week can slow the widening gap and boost social play on the playground.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Open your teen group with a 5-minute partner plank-ball pass to sneak in upper-body work.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Although motor-skill differences in autistic individuals are well established, there is diverging evidence regarding what happens to motor skills in autistic children as they become adolescents. Using both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, we examined fine and gross motor skills and grip strength of 187 autistic participants and 136 non-autistic participants (i.e., with no known diagnoses), aged 6-18 years-old. Participants completed the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency-Short Form, Second Edition (BOT-2 SF), and maximal grip strength testing. Linear mixed-effects regression analyses indicated motor-skill differences between autistic and non-autistic participants across this age range; however, the nature of these differences depended on the specific motor domain (i.e., strength) and measure. Specifically, grip strength and BOT-2 SF strength subtest scores showed widening group differences with increasing age, whereas overall BOT-2 SF scores and subtests showed sustained or narrowing group differences through adolescence. However, items on the BOT-2 SF also demonstrated substantial ceiling effects, which may obscure later group differences between autistic and non-autistic participants and highlight the need for measures that encompass a greater range of motor skills into adolescence. These findings have important implications for healthcare, education, and community supports that address age-related motor differences within the autistic population.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2026 · doi:10.1002/aur.70211