2016 APR 25 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Mental Health Weekly Digest -- Research findings on Neurology are discussed in a new report. According to news reporting out of Kingston, Canada, by NewsRx editors, research stated, "The current study examined whether children with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (HF-ASD) preferentially attend to point-light displays of biological, compared to mechanical motion. We hypothesized that children's attentional patterns toward the motion of living things would be reduced compared to typically developing (TD) children."
Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Queen's University, "Children also completed two categorization tasks measuring the animate-inanimate distinction. Children with HF-ASD were matched with TD children (n = 18 per group) on age, gender, and verbal ability. Overall, children with HF-ASD attended to biological and non-biological motion equally, whereas TD children demonstrated a preference for inanimate motion. Children with HF-ASD were also unimpaired in the formation of animate and inanimate concepts. Among children with HF-ASD, a link between attention to motion and categorization ability was observed, but only for inanimate objects. TD and HF-ASD groups differed in that visual exploration of the motion videos (e.g., saccades) was related to animate-inanimate categorization only among children with HF-ASD."
According to the news editors, the research concluded: "These results are discussed as a low-level test of the social attention/orienting hypothesis."
For more information on this research see: Biological motion and the animate-inanimate distinction in children with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2016;25():1-11. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders can be contacted at: Elsevier Sci Ltd, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, Oxon, England. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders - www.journals.elsevier.com/research-in-autism-spectrum-disorders/)
Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting K. Wright, Queen's University, Dept. of Psychol, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada. Additional authors for this research include E. Kelley and D. Poulin-Dubois.
Keywords for this news article include: Canada, Autism, Ontario, Kingston, Neurology, Pediatrics, North and Central America, Developmental Disabilities
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