Facilitating sensorimotor integration via blocked practice underpins imitation learning of atypical biological kinematics in autism spectrum disorder.
Nathan C Foster, Simon J Bennett, Joe Causer and 3 others
PMID 32168992WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic adults who struggled to imitate a novel, atypical movement learned it when they practised that single movement repeatedly in a block, rather than mixing it with typical movements.
Blocked practice allowed them to encode the unusual timing, a skill that transferred to random testing.
Key findings
01Autistic participants significantly improved their imitation of atypical movement kinematics during blocked practice, whereas neurotypical participants showed no significant change across phases.
02Autistic participants demonstrated significant learning of the atypical movement from pre-test to post-test, while neurotypical participants showed no overall learning effect.
03The amount of adaptation during blocked practice correlated with learning gains from pre-test to post-test for the autistic group only.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used a specific laboratory task (imitating a moving dot) which may not directly translate to complex functional movements. The sample size was small (20 per group). Participants were high-functioning (IQ > 85) and right-handed, so results may not apply to those with intellectual disability or different handedness. The effect was observed in a single acquisition session; long-term retention beyond the immediate post-test was not assessed.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. Funding was received from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement number 754490).
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that blocked practice is universally superior for all learners. Neurotypical participants in this study showed no benefit from blocked practice over random practice for this task. The advantage was specific to the autistic group's need for reduced sensorimotor interference to encode atypical kinematics.