Gross motor impairment and its relation to social skills in autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review and two meta-analyses.

ABSTRACT: Gross motor ability is associated with profound differences in how children experience and interact with their social world. A rapidly growing literature on motor development in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) indicates that autistic individuals exhibit impairment in gross motor skills. However, due to substantial heterogeneity across studies, it remains unclear which gross motor skills are impaired in ASD, when and for whom these differences emerge, and whether motor and social impairments are related. The present article addressed these questions by synthesizing research on gross motor skills in ASD in two separate meta-analyses. The first examined gross motor deficits in ASD compared to neurotypical (NT) controls, aggregating data from 114 studies representing 6,423 autistic and 2,941 NT

SUBMITTER: Wang LAL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9894569 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar-Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature