de Marchena Ashley, Zampella Casey J, Dravis Zachary, Pandey Juhi, Mostofsky Stewart, Schultz Robert T
Drexel University; AJ Drexel Autism Institute.
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Center for Autism Research; Roberts Center for Pediatric Research.
Res Autism Spectr Disord. 2023 Aug;106. doi: 10.1016/j.rasd.2023.102200. Epub 2023 Jun 24.
Difficulties with the ability to perform learned skilled movements, have been robustly demonstrated in autism spectrum disorder (autism). However, praxis assessment is not routinely included in autism characterization batteries, in part because it is traditionally time consuming to administer and score. We test whether dyspraxia in autism can be captured with a brief measure.
Youth with autism ( 41) and matched typically developing controls ( = 32), aged 8 to 16 years, completed a 5-minute praxis battery. The 19-item battery included four subtests: gesture to command, tool use, familiar imitation, and meaningless imitation. Video recordings were coded for error types and compared to participant characterization variables.
Consistent with research using a lengthy battery, autistic youth made more errors overall, with a large effect size. Groups demonstrated similar distributions of error types, suggesting that dyspraxia in autism is not limited to a particular error form. In the autism group, praxis was associated with adaptive functioning, but not autism traits.
A shortened battery is sufficiently sensitive to praxis differences between autistic and typically developing youth, increasing the feasibility of including praxis within clinical assessments or larger research batteries aimed at testing relationships with downstream skills.
在自闭症谱系障碍（孤独症）中，已有力证明了执行习得的熟练动作能力存在困难。然而，运用实践能力评估并非孤独症特征描述量表中的常规项目，部分原因在于传统上其实施和评分耗时较长。我们测试了能否通过一种简短的测量方法来捕捉孤独症中的运用障碍。
年龄在8至16岁的孤独症青少年（41名）和匹配的发育正常的对照组（32名）完成了一个5分钟的实践能力量表测试。这个包含19个项目的量表包括四个子测试：按指令做手势、工具使用、熟悉动作模仿和无意义动作模仿。对视频记录进行错误类型编码，并与参与者的特征变量进行比较。
与使用冗长量表的研究一致，孤独症青少年总体上错误更多，效应量较大。两组在错误类型分布上相似，这表明孤独症中的运用障碍并不局限于特定的错误形式。在孤独症组中，实践能力与适应性功能相关，但与孤独症特征无关。
一个缩短的量表对孤独症青少年和发育正常青少年之间的实践能力差异足够敏感，增加了将实践能力评估纳入临床评估或旨在测试与下游技能关系的更大规模研究量表的可行性。
