Personal space regulation in childhood autism: Effects of social interaction and person's perspective.
Children with high-social-impairment autism keep extra distance and do not adjust it after friendly contact, especially when asked to see the scene from another's eyes.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Michela and her team watched 8- to young learners stand and walk toward an adult stranger. Half the kids had autism; half were neurotypical.
Each child did the task twice: once after a short chat with the adult, once without talking. The researchers also asked the child to imagine the scene from the adult's point of view.
What they found
Kids with autism kept about 10 cm more space than typical peers. After the chat, typical kids stepped closer on the next trial; kids with autism did not.
The lack of 'post-chat adjustment' was strongest in children who scored highest on social-impairment tests and when they had to take the adult's perspective.
How this fits with other research
Plant et al. (2007) used the same lab and saw similar social rigidity: autistic youth showed flatter facial expressions and less back-and-forth during short conversations. Together the papers paint a picture of 'stuck' social spacing and signaling.
Kaartinen et al. (2016) looked inside the body and found that children who barely adjusted their autonomic arousal to eye contact also had the worst social scores. Michela's work now shows the outward mirror of that inflexibility—static personal space.
Erickson et al. (2016) argue autism could be re-defined as a tight cluster of spacing, gaze, and timing problems rather than a wide spectrum. Michela's data feed directly into that idea: spacing rigidity is one measurable leg of the cluster.
Why it matters
If a child never moves closer after a friendly exchange, peers may read it as rejection and walk away. You can teach flexible spacing the same way you teach greetings: model, rehearse, and reinforce small forward steps after social success. Add perspective-taking drills—'Where am I standing? Where is my friend?'—to your social-skills groups.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Measure each learner's preferred standing distance, then role-play taking one small step closer after a shared laugh and deliver praise for that adjustment.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Studies in children with Typical Development (TD) and with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) revealed that autism affects the personal space regulation, influencing both its size (permeability) and its changes depending on social interaction (flexibility). Here, we investigate how the nature of social interaction (Cooperative vs. Uncooperative) and the person perspective influence permeability and flexibility of interpersonal distance. Moreover, we tested whether the deficit observed in ASD children, reflects the social impairment (SI) in daily interactions. The stop-distance paradigm was used to measure the preferred distance between the participant and an unfamiliar adult (first-person perspective, Experiment 1), and between two other people (third-person perspective, Experiment 2). Interpersonal distance was measured before and after the interaction with a confederate. The Wing Subgroups Questionnaire was used to evaluate SI in everyday activities, and each ASD participant was accordingly assigned either to the lower (children with low social impairment [low-SI ASD]), or to the higher SI group (children with high social impairment [high-SI ASD]). We observed larger interpersonal distance (permeability) in both ASD groups compared to TD children. Moreover, depending on the nature of social interaction, a modulation of interpersonal distance (flexibility) was observed in TD children, both from the first- and third-person perspective. Similar findings were found in low-SI but not in high-SI ASD children, in Experiment 1. Conversely, in Experiment 2, no change was observed in both ASD groups. These findings reveal that SI severity and a person's perspective may account for the deficit observed in autism when flexibility, but not permeability, of personal space is considered. Autism Res 2017, 10: 144-154. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2017 · doi:10.1002/aur.1637