Cardillo Ramona, Erbì Cristiana, Mammarella Irene C
Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2020 Jun 3;14:208. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.00208. eCollection 2020.
Despite its impact on everyday functioning, spatial perspective-taking has rarely been investigated in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and previous findings are surprisingly sparse and inconsistent. In the present study, we aimed to investigate spatial perspective-taking abilities in children and adolescents with ASD without intellectual disabilities, comparing them with a group of typically developing (TD) peers. Our objectives were: (i) to test similarities and differences between these groups in a spatial perspective-taking task; and (ii) to see whether similar or different underlying processes (i.e., fine and gross motor skills, and visuospatial abilities) might account for the groups' performance in the spatial perspective-taking task. A group of children with ASD ( = 36) was compared with a TD group ( = 39), aged from 8 to 16 years. Participants were administered tasks assessing spatial perspective-taking, fine and gross motor skills, visuo-constructive abilities, visuospatial working memory, visual imagery, and mental rotation. Our results revealed that the ASD group had more difficulty with the spatial perspective-taking task than the TD group. The two groups also had some shared and some different processes that predicted their perspective-taking performance: a significant predictive effect of fine motor skills and visuospatial working memory emerged for both groups, while gross motor skills (i.e., walking heel-to-toe) and visuospatial imagery only revealed a role in the TD group. These findings suggest that different abilities might account for the two groups' performance in the spatial perspective-taking task. Gross motor skills and complex visuospatial abilities seem to be more important in sustaining spatial perspective-taking ability in typical development than in the event of ASD. Some of the clinical and educational implications of these findings are discussed.
尽管空间视角采择对日常功能有影响，但在自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）中却很少被研究，而且先前的研究结果出奇地稀少且不一致。在本研究中，我们旨在调查无智力障碍的ASD儿童和青少年的空间视角采择能力，并将他们与一组发育正常（TD）的同龄人进行比较。我们的目标是：（i）在空间视角采择任务中测试这些组之间的异同；（ii）查看相似或不同的潜在过程（即精细和粗大运动技能以及视觉空间能力）是否可能解释这些组在空间视角采择任务中的表现。将一组ASD儿童（n = 36）与一个年龄在8至16岁的TD组（n = 39）进行比较。参与者接受了评估空间视角采择、精细和粗大运动技能、视觉建构能力、视觉空间工作记忆、视觉表象和心理旋转的任务。我们的结果显示，ASD组在空间视角采择任务上比TD组有更多困难。两组在预测其视角采择表现方面也有一些共同和不同的过程：精细运动技能和视觉空间工作记忆对两组均产生了显著的预测作用，而粗大运动技能（即脚跟对脚尖行走）和视觉空间表象仅在TD组中显示出作用。这些发现表明，不同的能力可能解释两组在空间视角采择任务中的表现。在典型发育中，粗大运动技能和复杂的视觉空间能力似乎比在ASD情况下对维持空间视角采择能力更为重要。本文讨论了这些发现的一些临床和教育意义。
