Assessment of presentation patterns of repetitive behaviors in Autism: a cross-sectional video-recording study. Preliminary report

Abstract

Twenty expert caregivers wearing a body cam recorded 1868 videoclips in 67 autistic subjects along a 3 months close follow-up. A team consisting of a senior child neuro-psychiatrist and a senior psychologist selected 780 of them as expressing repetitive behaviors (RB) and made an empirical classification according to components, complexity, body parts and sensory channels involved, with the aim to understand better the pattern complexity and correlate with autism severity. The RB spectrum for each subject ranged from 1 to 33 different patterns (average= 11.6; S.D.= 6.82). Forty subjects expressed prevalent simple pattern and 27 prevalent complex patterns. No significant differences are found between the two groups according to ADOS score severity. This study represents a first attempt to systematically document expression patterns of RB with a data driven approach. This may provide a better understanding of the pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of RB.