Moving Together: Social Motor Synchrony in Autistic Peer Partners Depends on Partner and Activity Type

Abstract

Some suggest autistic people display impaired Interpersonal Synchrony. However, partners of different neurotypes can struggle to connect and empathise with one another. We used Motion Energy Analysis to examine Social Motor Synchrony (SMS) in familiar partners of the same neurotype: pairs of autistic and of neurotypical children. Partners played two shared tablet activities, one to support collaboration by facilitating engagement and other-awareness (Connect), and one with no additional design features to facilitate collaboration (Colours). The neurotypical group showed similar SMS to the autistic group in Colours but lower SMS in Connect. The autistic group displayed similar levels of SMS in each activity. Autistic children can synchronise to a similar, or greater, degree than neurotypical children when the social context and type of task are considered.

Interpersonal motor synchrony in autism: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…( 86 ), Noel et al. ( 90 ) and Glass and Yuill ( 60 ). Different ROIs have been selected by different groups: Liu et al.…”

“…They involved ASD-ASD and TD-TD children pairs in two joint tablet-based activities and found that the two groups exhibited comparable IMS in the one activity that was not designed to deliberately stimulate interaction, while demonstrating lower IMS in the one activity that was designed to encourage collaboration and other-awareness. Notably, autistic children maintained consistent synchronization levels across both activities, suggesting that in specific social contexts, they may possess comparable or heightened synchronization skills ( 60 ). To our knowledge, only one other study looked at ASD-ASD dyads compared to ASD-TD and TD-TD, but did not find an advantage of neurodevelopmentally homogeneous (over heterogeneous) dyads on IMS ( 86 ).…”

“…To our knowledge, only one other study looked at ASD-ASD dyads compared to ASD-TD and TD-TD, but did not find an advantage of neurodevelopmentally homogeneous (over heterogeneous) dyads on IMS ( 86 ). Given the controversial results of these two pivotal studies ( 60 , 86 ) further research is needed to examine whether IMS in ASD-ASD dyads is or is not enhanced, and which factors contribute to such differences.…”

“…Different ROIs have been selected by different groups: Liu et al. ( 56 ), as well as Glass and Yuill ( 60 ) selected 2 ROIs only (corresponding to each person) as being interested in a whole-body coordination, while other groups chose to differentiate between multiple ROIs within each individual [i.e., head and body in Georgescu et al. ( 86 ); head, hand, trunk in Noel et al.…”

“…Notably, the presence of both ASD and TD groups in each study that was included is necessary for effect size calculation purposes. Unfortunately, only n = 1 paper compared TD-TD with ASD-ASD dyads ( 60 ) and we therefore excluded these data from our analyses to conduct the meta-analysis on a more homogeneous corpus of studies, whilst its content was included in our systematic review. The interaction dynamics are in fact hypothesized to be different here and to test this we would need more studies with this type of dyad and run moderation analyses, but unfortunately this was not the case.…”