Action Semantic Deficits and Impaired Motor Skills in Autistic Adults Without Intellectual Impairment.

ABSTRACT: Several studies indicate the functional importance of the motor cortex for higher cognition, language and semantic processing, and place the neural substrate of these processes in sensorimotor action-perception circuits linking motor, sensory and perisylvian language regions. Interestingly, in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), semantic processing of action and emotion words seems to be impaired and is associated with hypoactivity of the motor cortex during semantic processing. In this study, the relationship between semantic processing, fine motor skills and clinical symptoms was investigated in 19 individuals with ASD and 22 typically-developing matched controls. Participants completed two semantic decision tasks involving words from different semantic categories, a test of

SUBMITTER: Hillus J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6669914 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature