The Psychomotor Profile in Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders: Clinical Assessments and Implications for Therapy

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a class of neurodevelopmental disorders defined by qualitative impairments in social functioning and communication, often accompanied by repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behaviour’s and interests, with their typical onset during the first three years of life. Recent researches demonstrate that early diagnosis and intervention sensibly improve outcomes. Until now, a limit of the most common therapies has been to get poor results in approaching the relational and emotional difficulties that, finding their origin in the early interactions that the child has with the outside world, must take account of the body as first experiential and communicative channel for the new-born. Although the current assessment protocols provide for development scales and observation of motor skills, do not yet exist studies aimed at identifying characteristic psychomotor profiles and too little attention is paid to bodily dimension in therapeutic terms. The purpose of present paper is to examine the psychomotor profiles of 61 children diagnosed with ASD, analyse their specifies and correlations with symptoms and cognitive development. Results show that children with more severe impairment have greater troubles in modulating their body, in attention, in spatial organization, in symbolic play, in motor behaviour’s, starting from imitation, and in communication, even from the most archaic mode, namely the tonic dialogue. Findings, supported by what has already been published on the effectiveness of early developmental-relationship-bodily based approach with ASD children, support the idea that psychomotor area should represent an essential element in childhood rehabilitative therapies, especially in autism, where it is necessary to start from body and experience intended as a solid foundation on which build cognitive and social skills