Brain Oxygenation and Posture Development in Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder
Advisor Information
Anastasia Kyvelidou
Location
UNO Criss Library, Room 231
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Start Date
3-3-2017 10:00 AM
End Date
3-3-2017 10:15 AM
Abstract
One in 68 children in the United States is currently diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). ASD is characterized by social, emotional, motor, and perceptual deficits.Interestingly, children with ASD prefer to visually examine non-social images over socially relevant images, whereas children with typical development prefer to view social over non-social images.This is an important distinction because preferential attention to social features is considered critical for the development of motor skills. Several studies have reported movement-related deficits in children with ASD such as in standing, sitting, and walking. Interestingly, neural foundations involved in perceiving social images have been found to coincide with brain areas associated with developing motor skills. Based on this information, we hypothesized that children diagnosed with ASD compared to controls would show different patterns in standing posture and brain oxygenation when viewing social images (i.e. people) compared to non-social images (i.e. geometric shapes). We examined two children diagnosed with ASD and seven controls. Participants stood on a force plate and wore a functional near infrared spectroscopy cap and watched a video with social and non-social images. Contrary to our hypothesis, our results yielded no significant differences in posture measures by stimulus type. However, children with ASD moved less compared to controls. Control subjects also displayed deoxygenated hemoglobin differences by stimulus type (social versus non-social images). Future research is needed with a larger sample size to confirm and further explore these findings.
Brain Oxygenation and Posture Development in Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder
UNO Criss Library, Room 231
One in 68 children in the United States is currently diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). ASD is characterized by social, emotional, motor, and perceptual deficits.Interestingly, children with ASD prefer to visually examine non-social images over socially relevant images, whereas children with typical development prefer to view social over non-social images.This is an important distinction because preferential attention to social features is considered critical for the development of motor skills. Several studies have reported movement-related deficits in children with ASD such as in standing, sitting, and walking. Interestingly, neural foundations involved in perceiving social images have been found to coincide with brain areas associated with developing motor skills. Based on this information, we hypothesized that children diagnosed with ASD compared to controls would show different patterns in standing posture and brain oxygenation when viewing social images (i.e. people) compared to non-social images (i.e. geometric shapes). We examined two children diagnosed with ASD and seven controls. Participants stood on a force plate and wore a functional near infrared spectroscopy cap and watched a video with social and non-social images. Contrary to our hypothesis, our results yielded no significant differences in posture measures by stimulus type. However, children with ASD moved less compared to controls. Control subjects also displayed deoxygenated hemoglobin differences by stimulus type (social versus non-social images). Future research is needed with a larger sample size to confirm and further explore these findings.