Posture Matters: Object Manipulation During the Transition to Arms-Free Sitting in Infants at Elevated vs. Typical Likelihood for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Mlincek, Miranda; Roemer, Emily J.; Kraemer, Christen; Iverson, Jana M.

doi:10.1080/01942638.2022.2027845

Cited by 12 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Autistic children exhibit neurodevelopmental delays in the early stages of life (Keirns, 2021). Studies showed disturbances in the movement of autistic children and newborns (Harris, 2017) The disturbances were revealed in the shape of the mouth and in some or all the milestones of development, including lying, righting, sitting, crawling, and walking (Mansour et al, 2021;Mlincek et al, 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal treatment with aripiprazole prevents the development of a valproic acid-induced autism-like phenotype in juvenile male mice

Ferreira¹,

Gomes²,

Neves³

et al. 2023

Behavioural Pharmacology

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Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) describes a heterogeneous group of neurodevelopmental conditions characterized by deficits in social communication and repetitive behaviors. Aripiprazole (APZ) is an atypical antipsychotic that can safeguard mice against autism-like behavior induced by valproic acid (VPA). In the present study, we examined the effects of maternal treatment with APZ (10 mg/kg) in juvenile mice prenatally exposed to VPA on neurodevelopmental behaviors, social interactions, communication, and working memory, as well as synaptophysin (SYP), synaptosomal-associated protein, 25 kDa (SNAP-25) and microtubule-associated protein 2 (MAP-2) expression in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and cell viability in the hippocampus. In addition, to evaluate possible APZ interference with the anticonvulsant properties of VPA on pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)-induced seizures were evaluated. Maternal treatment with APZ significantly prevented body weight loss, self-righting, eye-opening, social interactions, social communication, and working memory deficits in mice prenatally exposed to VPA. Additionally, the decrease in the SYP, SNAP-25, and MAP-2 expressions in the mPFC and cell death in the hippocampus was prevented by APZ. Furthermore, APZ (10 mg/kg) did not interfere with the anticonvulsant effect of VPA (15 mg/kg) in animals with PTZ-induced seizures. These findings indicate that maternal treatment with APZ in pregnant mice exposed to VPA protects animals against the ASD-like behavioral phenotype, and this effect may be related, at least in part, to synaptic plasticity and neuronal protection in the PFC and hippocampus. APZ may serve as an effective pharmacological therapeutic target against autistic behaviors in the VPA animal model of ASD, which should be further investigated to verify its clinical relevance.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal treatment with aripiprazole prevents the development of a valproic acid-induced autism-like phenotype in juvenile male mice

Ferreira¹,

Gomes²,

Neves³

et al. 2023

Behavioural Pharmacology

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“…In other words, on an absolute basis, EL‐ASD infants produced fewer social action bouts that require the integration of multiple skills (i.e., walking, carrying, gesturing). This difference may reflect slower consolidation of the biomechanics of walking skills (e.g., maintaining an upright posture), skills that are required for coordinating locomotion with social actions (see Mlincek et al, 2022, for a similar argument). More importantly, reduced overall use of walking by EL‐ASD infants has important implications for caregiver opportunities to respond to their social actions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Infants with an older sibling diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who are at elevated likelihood (EL) for ASD (Ozonoff et al, 2011), exhibit delays and differences in the three skills that make up moving bids. Not only do EL infants tend to walk at later ages than their peers with a typical likelihood (TL) for ASD (e.g., Ozonoff et al, 2008; West, 2019), but they also exhibit delays in fine motor skills critical for object carrying (e.g., grasping; Choi et al, 2018; Iverson et al, 2019; Patterson et al, 2022), gesture less frequently (e.g., Choi et al, 2020; Leezenbaum et al, 2014), and may require more time to integrate motor skills with simultaneous production of other behaviors (e.g., Mlincek et al, 2022). For example, a study of 15‐month‐old walkers revealed that EL infants produced significantly fewer object sharing bids (e.g., giving an object to their caregiver) than their TL counterparts and rarely used locomotion to approach caregivers to share an object (Srinivasan & Bhat, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bidding on the go: Links between walking, social actions, and caregiver responses in infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder

2022

Self Cite

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The development of walking is associated with a shift in how neurotypical infants initiate social interactions. Walking infants are more likely to locate objects in distant places, carry them, and then share those objects by approaching caregivers and using gestures to show or offer their discoveries (i.e., moving bids). The simultaneous organization of the behaviors necessary to generate moving bids requires the coordination of multiple skills-walking, fine motor skills, and gesturing. Infants with an elevated likelihood (EL) for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit differences and delays in each of these behaviors. This study investigated interconnections between infant walking, social actions, and caregiver responses in 18-month-old EL infants with diverse developmental outcomes (ASD, non-ASD language delay, no diagnosis). We observed 85 infant-caregiver dyads at home during everyday activities for 45 minutes and identified all times when infants walked, instances of walking paired with social action (i.e., approaching the caregiver, approaching while carrying an object, producing a moving bid), and whether caregivers responded to their infants' social actions. There were no group differences in infants' production of social actions. Caregiver responses, however, were more clearly modulated by outcome group. While all caregivers were similarly and highly likely to respond to moving bids, caregivers of EL-ASD infants were substantially more likely to respond when their infants simply approached them (with or without an object in hand). Taken together, this research underscores the complexity of EL infant-caregiver interactions and highlights the role that each partner plays in shaping how they unfold.

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“…In the upright position, infants have a new panoramic view of their surroundings (e.g., Bertenthal & von Hofsten, 1998) and improved visual access to objects and people. As infants' hands are no longer needed for support and become free to move, infants reach for objects more frequently, and spend more time touching and holding them (Harbourne et al, 2013; Mlincek et al, 2022). They now also have access to a larger portion of the space around them and can successfully reach for objects located both directly in front of them and peripherally (Rochat & Goubet, 1995).…”

Section: Advances In Posture and Language Development: The Transition...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing language in a developing body, revisited: The cascading effects of motor development on the acquisition of language

Iverson

2022

WIRES Cognitive Science

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In the first years of life, infants rapidly acquire a series of new motor skills.They learn to sit independently, to walk with skill, and to engage in a wide variety of interactions with objects. Over these same years, infants also begin to develop language. These are not isolated events. In a complex developing system, even small changes in one domain can have far-reaching effects on development in other domains. This is the fundamental idea behind the rich framework known as the developmental cascades perspective. Here we employ this framework to show how early motor advances can exert downstream effects on the development of language. Focusing first on the emergence of independent sitting, then on the development of walking, and finally on changes in the ways in which infants act on and combine actions on objects, we describe how the nature and quality of infant actions change dramatically over the first few years and how this brings with it new possibilities for engaging the environment, more sophisticated ways of interacting with people, and significant alterations in communications directed by caregivers to the infant and coordinated with infant action in time and in meaning. The developmental cascades framework provides an approach for understanding how advances in motor skills influence communicative and language development, and more generally, for conceptualizing the constant, dynamic, and complex interplay between developing infants and their environments as it unfolds over time.

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Posture Matters: Object Manipulation During the Transition to Arms-Free Sitting in Infants at Elevated vs. Typical Likelihood for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Cited by 12 publications

References 38 publications

Maternal treatment with aripiprazole prevents the development of a valproic acid-induced autism-like phenotype in juvenile male mice

Maternal treatment with aripiprazole prevents the development of a valproic acid-induced autism-like phenotype in juvenile male mice

Bidding on the go: Links between walking, social actions, and caregiver responses in infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder

Developing language in a developing body, revisited: The cascading effects of motor development on the acquisition of language

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