Movement perception and movement production in Asperger's Syndrome

To determine whether motor difficulties documented in Asperger's Syndrome (AS) are related to compromised visual abilities, this study examined perception and movement in response to dynamic visual environments. Fourteen males with AS and 16 controls aged 7–23 completed measures of motor skills, postural response to optic flow, and visual sensitivity to static form and coherent motion in random dot kinematograms and point-light walkers. No group differences were found in sensitivity to static form or coherent motion. However, significant group differences were found in visual sensitivity to human movement and postural responsivity to optic flow, which both correlated with motor skills. This may suggest difficulties in perception and production of movement and dysfunctional perceptual-motor linkages in AS.

► Participants with Asperger's Syndrome (AS) scored significantly lower than a control group on measures of motor skills. ► Better motor performance was associated with better postural stability when viewing a visually dynamic virtual reality scene, and participants with AS showed significantly more postural sway than controls. ► Better motor performance was also associated with better visual sensitivity to biological motion, and participants with AS showed less sensitivity to human motion than controls. ► Better motor performance was also associated with increased sensitivity to motion perception; however, there were no differences between groups on random dot kinematograms, nor in terms of visual form perception. ► This may suggest that motor difficulties in AS may be related to perceptual deficits in visual sensitivity to dynamic information.