Slower pace in early walking onset is related to communication, motor skills, and adaptive function in autistic toddlers.
Slower walking pace in autistic toddlers flags lags in talking and daily living skills even when walking starts on time.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched how autistic toddlers walk. They also watched kids without autism who were the same age.
Everyone had started walking on time. The study only looked at the speed of each step, not when walking began.
Researchers then gave standard tests for talking, moving, and daily living skills.
What they found
Autistic toddlers took slower steps than their peers.
Slower walking speed lined up with lower scores in talking, moving, and daily living.
Even when first steps happen on schedule, the pace still hints at wider delays.
How this fits with other research
Li et al. (2023) saw the same link earlier. In babies with autism in the family, gross motor lag plus poor receptive language at 10-24 months predicted later autism traits. Wilson et al. (2024) now show the signal stays visible in toddlerhood.
Ben-Itzchak et al. (2020) tracked the same kids for over ten years. Toddlers who had better early adaptive and communication scores grew into teens with stronger skills. The new gait data give you a quick, non-verbal way to spot which toddlers may need that long-term support.
Baghdadli et al. (2012) mapped two clear adaptive growth curves: most kids stayed flat, a few rose. Slow walking pace may help you place a toddler on the flatter track early and plan more hours of intervention right away.
Why it matters
You can clock walking speed in minutes during any clinic visit. A slower pace is an easy red flag for language, motor, and daily living delays even when milestones look "on time." Use the tip to start richer assessments and bump up intervention hours sooner.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The onset of walking is a major developmental milestone in early childhood and is critical to the development of language and social communication. Delays in walking have been described in individuals with ASD. Yet, less is known about the quality of early gait development in toddlers with ASD and the relationship to motor skills, social communication, and language. Quantitative measures of locomotion can improve our ability to evaluate subtle and specific motor differences in toddlers with ASD and their relationship to other developmental domains. We used quantitative gait analysis to evaluate locomotion in toddlers with ASD (n = 51) and compared these data to a reference chronological aged (CA) and mental aged (MA) matched typically developing (TD) cohort (n = 45). We also examined the relationship of quantitative gait metrics to developmental measures among toddlers with ASD. We found that although toddlers with ASD achieved a typical age range of walking onset, they exhibited a pattern of slower pace compared to the TD cohort when matched by CA and MA. We also found that slower measures of pace were associated with lower developmental scores of communication, motor skills, and adaptive function. Our findings improve characterization of locomotion in toddlers with ASD and the relationship of motor skills to other developmental domains.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2024 · doi:10.1002/mds.21720