Do the enhanced errors impact visuomotor adaptation in children with autism spectrum disorder?

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often exhibit challenges with visuomotor adaptation. This study explored whether enlarged visual error feedback could enhance motor adaptability in children with and without ASD. Thirty-five children, ages 6 to 10, completed two center-out computerized adaptation tasks. In these tasks, the visual feedback of their hand movement error was provided in either a regular (gain = 1:1) or enhanced (gain = 1:2) ratio. Results indicated that children with ASD had reduced visuomotor adaptability compared to their peers during the regular feedback task. However, in the enhanced feedback task, children with ASD showed positive after-effects on a key motor planning measure, implying that they might be capable of adapting to visual distortions. Despite this, the lack of significant differences between the tasks suggests that while enhanced visual feedback may offer some benefits, it is unlikely to fully offset the compromised visuomotor adaptability. Meanwhile, the ASD group demonstrated an association between fine motor skills and visuomotor adaptability during the regular task. Further approaches beyond enhancing visual feedback need to be explored for a better understanding of the mechanisms behind kinematic adaptation in ASD.