Adults with autism are less proficient in identifying biological motion actions portrayed with point-light displays.
E-Y Hsiung, S H-L Chien, Y-H Chu and 1 others
PMID 31020725WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with autism identified moving-dot human actions less accurately and more slowly than neurotypical adults, but both groups improved on a second viewing and found actions with invisible objects harder.
Key findings
01Adults with ASD averaged 29.30 correct actions out of 40, compared with 32.77 for neurotypical adults.
02Adults with ASD were slower to identify actions, with a mean reaction time of 4685 ms compared with 3657 ms for neurotypical adults.
03Both groups identified more actions and responded faster when the same action was presented a second time.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study compared two groups in a computer task, so it does not show how adults with autism function in therapy or daily life. The autism group was older than the neurotypical group (mean age 28.36 years vs 22.45 years), and age could influence performance. IQ was not measured, and participants with intellectual disability were not included, so results may not apply to all autistic adults. Participants were recruited from an Asperger's club Facebook group and university students, so the groups may differ in background, experience or motivation. Motor skills, physical activity, previous visual experience with the actions, and motivation were not measured, so the study cannot separate these factors from autism. The task used point-light actions with invisible objects, which may be unfamiliar and may require guessing, and the authors say this can affect difficulty.
Declared interests
The authors reported no conflicts of interest. The project was supported by Taiwanese Ministry of Science and Technology grants.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that adults with autism cannot identify human actions. They identified fewer actions and took longer, but they still named many actions correctly, and both groups improved on a second viewing.