Department of Educational Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong SAR, The People's Republic of China.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2024 Sep;54(9):3504-3515. doi: 10.1007/s10803-023-06049-9. Epub 2023 Aug 29.
The heterogeneity of autism is well documented, but few studies have studied the heterogeneity of gesture production ability in autistic children. The present study aimed to identify subgroups of autistic children who displayed heterogeneous gesture production abilities and explore the underlying factors, including autism characteristics, intellectual ability, and language ability, that were associated with the heterogeneity.
A total of 65 Chinese autistic children (mean age = 5;3) participated. Their autism characteristics and intellectual ability were assessed by standardized measurements. Language output and gesture production were captured from a parent-child interaction task.
We conducted a hierarchical cluster analysis and identified four distinct clusters. Cluster 1 and Cluster 2 both had low gesture production whereas Cluster 3 and Cluster 4 had high gesture production. Both Clusters 1 and 2 had relatively strong autism characteristics, in comparison to Clusters 3 and 4.
Our findings revealed that children with stronger autism characteristics may gesture less often than those with weaker characteristics. However, the relationship between language ability and intellectual ability and gesture production was not clear. These findings shed light on the directions of intervention on gesture production for autistic children, especially those with stronger autism characteristics.
自闭症具有明显的异质性，但是很少有研究关注自闭症儿童手势产生能力的异质性。本研究旨在识别具有不同手势产生能力的自闭症儿童亚组，并探讨与这种异质性相关的潜在因素，包括自闭症特征、智力和语言能力。
共纳入 65 名中国自闭症儿童（平均年龄=5;3）。他们的自闭症特征和智力通过标准化测量进行评估。语言输出和手势产生从亲子互动任务中获取。
我们进行了层次聚类分析，确定了四个不同的聚类。第 1 组和第 2 组的手势产生都较低，而第 3 组和第 4 组的手势产生较高。与第 3 组和第 4 组相比，第 1 组和第 2 组的自闭症特征都较强。
本研究结果表明，自闭症特征较强的儿童可能比特征较弱的儿童手势出现频率较低。然而，语言能力和智力与手势产生之间的关系尚不清楚。这些发现为自闭症儿童的手势产生干预方向提供了启示，尤其是那些自闭症特征较强的儿童。
