Brief report: Parent-guided movements during play with children with autism spectrum disorder.

Background: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate social and communication impairments from an early age. While researchers have long investigated parenting behaviors in relation to children's social and communication development, fewer studies have examined the relevance of movement-based parenting behaviors to facilitating communication and social engagement with young children. The present study aimed to investigate: (1) parent-guided movements (PGMs) within dyads of parents and typically developing (TD) children and children with ASD; and (2) children's ASD diagnostic and receptive language scores as predictors of PGM frequency. Method: Video-recorded play interactions of 33 TD dyads (mean age: 20.4 months) and 31 dyads with ASD (mean age: 32.6 months) were matched on child's expressive language. Data were obtained from a longitudinal study on developmental language trajectories in ASD and coded for PGMs. Results: Overall, parents of children with ASD initiated PGMs more frequently than parents of TD children during play (U = 269.00, z = - 3.58, p < 0.001). PGM frequency was predicted by children's ADOS scores (X 2 = 5.46, p = 0.02, OR = 1.26, 95% CI [1.04, 1.54]) and receptive language (X 2 = 4.15, p = 0.04, OR = 5.43, 95% CI [1.10, 27.67]). Conclusions: Findings suggest that parents of children with ASD and low receptive language may utilize more movement-based strategies to compensate for their children's impaired social engagement and verbal comprehension. This study offers insight on a particular movement-based modality characterizing ASD dyads that can be used as a measure in parent-mediated interventions.

Analysis of gait synchrony and balance in neurodevelopmental disorders using computer vision techniques.

Gait tasks are commonly administered during motor assessments of children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Gait analyses are often conducted in laboratory settings using costly and cumbersome experiments. In this paper, we propose a computational pipeline using computer vision techniques as an ecological and precise method to quantify gait in children with NDDs with challenging behaviors. We analyzed videos of 15 probands (PB) and 12 typically developing (TD) siblings, engaged in a preferred-pace walking task, using pose estimation software to track points of interest on their bodies over time. Analyzing the extracted information revealed that PB children had significantly less whole-body gait synchrony and poorer balance compared to their TD siblings. Our work offers a cost-effective method while preserving the validity of its results. This remote approach increases access to more diverse and distant cohorts and thus lowers barriers to research participation, further enriching our understanding of motor outcomes in NDDs.

Assessing Child Postural Variability: Development, Feasibility, and Reliability of a Video Coding System.

AIMS: Postural variability is central to children's locomotion, motor control, and environmental exploration, and lacks standardized methods for systematic assessment. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate the feasibility and interrater reliability of Child Posture Variability Coding (CPVC), a method of quantifying postural variability in young children. METHOD: Videos of parent-child play interactions obtained from a longitudinal study investigating language acquisition in typically developing (TD) children and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were used to develop 33 codes for children's voluntary changes in static and dynamic postures. Interrater reliability was calculated for three raters who independently coded 10 randomly selected videos of children aged 23 to 48 months (TD: n = 5, median = 35, IQR = 12.5; ASD: n = 5, median = 35, IQR = 6.75). RESULTS: Overall, CPVC demonstrated excellent interrater reliability (Krippendorff's α > 0.90). Among all codes developed, five codes (i.e., sit-half, sit-other, crawl, cruise, and supported walk) were not observed by any coders in the sample, but were kept in the coding scheme to reflect normal developmental milestones. CONCLUSIONS: CPVC is a reliable, feasible method of quantifying postural variability in young children with and without neurodevelopmental disorders in naturalistic contexts.