Gesture imitation in autism I: Nonsymbolic postures and sequences

This study investigated the ability of children and adolescents with autism to imitate nonsymbolic manual postures and sequences. The controls were ch ildren with receptive language delays (matched to the autistic group for ag e and language level), and typically developing children (matched for langu age level). Control tasks assessed gesture memory and manual dexterity. Imi tation tasks were videotaped for blind scoring of overall accuracy and spec ific errors. Children with autism performed relatively poorly on posture im itation, but not imitation of simple posture sequences. Reduced manual dext erity contributed to, but did not entirely account for the autistic imitati ve deficit. An error that was significantly more common in the autistic gro up suggests that their difficulty in assuming another's perspective may be apparent at the level of simple actions.