The Psychomotor Profile in Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders: Clinical Assessments and Implications for Therapy

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a class of neurodevelopmental disorders defined by qualitative impairments in social functioning and communication, often accompanied by repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behaviour's and interests, with their typical onset during the first three years of life. Recent researches demonstrate that early diagnosis and intervention sensibly improve outcomes. Until now, a limit of the most common therapies has been to get poor results in approaching the relational and emotional difficulties that, finding their origin in the early interactions that the child has with the outside world, must take account of the body as first experiential and communicative channel for the new-born. Although the current assessment protocols provide for development scales and observation of motor skills, do not yet exist studies aimed at identifying characteristic psychomotor profiles and too little attention is paid to bodily dimension in therapeutic terms. The purpose of present paper is to examine the psychomotor profiles of 61 children diagnosed with ASD, analyse their specifies and correlations with symptoms and cognitive development. Results show that children with more severe impairment have greater troubles in modulating their body, in attention, in spatial organization, in symbolic play, in motor behaviour's, starting from imitation, and in communication, even from the most archaic mode, namely the tonic dialogue. Findings, supported by what has already been published on the effectiveness of early developmental-relationship-bodily based approach with ASD children, support the idea that psychomotor area should represent an essential element in childhood rehabilitative therapies, especially in autism, where it is necessary to start from body and experience intended as a solid foundation on which build cognitive and social skills Citation:

Benefícios Da Equoterapia No Desenvolvimento Psicomotor De Uma Criança Com Espectro Autista

“…Segundo Koka (9), Di Renzo et al (12) e Bojanek et al (13) a criança autista mostra falta de sintonia com seu próprio corpo, principalmente, em relação aos movimentos de imitação, devido a falha de modulação aos estímulos ambientais (14) . Quando no dorso do cavalo, o movimento tridimensional estimula vias exteroceptivas e proprioceptivas que favorecem o entendimento, por parte destas crianças, do seu próprio corpo e, consequentemente, a criação do esquema corporal (14) .…”

Perfil psicomotor de crianças com transtorno do espectro autista

“…Avaliar o perfil psicomotor no TEA, contribui para o direcionamento de terapias em equipes multidisciplinares (DI RENZO et al, 2017), porém é necessário criar metas individualizadas, baseado no relato dos pais.…”

“…Os resultados confirmaram que em crianças com TEA a gravidade dos sintomas e o comprometimento das funções cognitivas estão relacionados às dificuldades em usar o corpo em relação ao outro, na organização espacial e atenção durante a participação em jogos, na comunicação e nos comportamentos motores. Em relação ao perfil psicomotor, os autores relataram posturas inadequadas, o uso de seu corpo e dos outros, de forma inadequada, dificuldades no diálogo tônico, ou seja, na capacidade de modular a postura do corpo para entrar em contato com os outros, problemas no uso de objetos no ambiente, na capacidade de se organizar espacialmente e na imitação de gestos significativos (DI RENZO et al, 2017). Kaura, Srinivasana e Bhat (2018) realizaram uma pesquisa que teve como objetivo comparar o desempenho psicomotor de crianças com desenvolvimento típico e crianças com autismo.…”

Coexistence of motor and functional language deficits based on ICD-11 criteria in children with autism spectrum disorder - An exploratory study

“…Vzhledem k celosvětově rostoucí prevalenci této poruchy stoupá ruku v ruce s ní důležitost hodnocení koexistujících příznaků a komorbidit, mezi které jsou zařazeny také již zmíněné poruchy motorických funkcí (Sauer et al, 2021) a opožděný psychomotorický vývoj vzhledem k vývojovým normám pro neurotypickou populaci (Di Renzo et al, 2017;Hu et al, 2021;Chiva-Bartoll et al, 2021;Provost et al, 2007;Taddei et al, 2023), které jsou identifikovány u 42-79 % dětí s PAS v závislosti na použitých diagnostických metodách (Hu et al, 2021). Nejčastěji popisované deficity a abnormality u dětí s PAS v oblasti motoriky zahrnují abnormality chůze -chůze po špičkách (APA, 2015;Rinehart et al, 2006), narušení koordinace (David et al, 2009;Ketcheson et al, 2017) a dále narušení rovnováhy a dovedností hrubé motoriky (Fournier et al, 2010;Kangarani-Farahani et al, 2023;Čadilová a Žampachová et al, 2012;Licari et al, 2020;Wilson et al, 2018).…”