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Brief Report: Imitation of Meaningless Gestures in Individuals with Asperger Syndrome and High-functioning Autism

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Abstract

Nineteen people with Asperger syndrome (AS)/High-Functioning Autism (HFA) (ages 7–15) were tested on imitation of two types of meaningless gesture: hand postures and finger positions. The individuals with AS/HFA achieved lower scores in the imitation of both hand and finger positions relative to a matched neurotypical group. The between-group difference was primarily accounted for by performance on a test of visual motor integration, together with a hand imitation deficit which was specifically due to errors in body part orientation. Our findings implicate both visuomotor processes (Damasio and Maurer, 1978) and self-other mapping (Rogers and Pennington, 1991) in ASD imitation deficits. Following Goldenberg (1999), we propose that difficulties with body part orientation may underlie problems in meaningless gesture imitation.

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Correspondence to Heidi Stieglitz Ham.

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Stieglitz Ham, H., Corley, M., Rajendran, G. et al. Brief Report: Imitation of Meaningless Gestures in Individuals with Asperger Syndrome and High-functioning Autism. J Autism Dev Disord 38, 569–573 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0417-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0417-x

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