New Research Sheds Light on Motor Learning and Autism
Monday July 6, 2009
Physical awkwardness, low motor tone and other gross motor issues have always been among the symptoms of autism spectrum disorders. Up until now, though, there's been little research conducted to figure out why this is the case. Now, an intriguing study conducted by the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins sheds some light on the subject:
The findings suggest that children with autism appear to learn new actions differently than do typically developing children. As compared to their typically developing peers, children with autism relied much more on their own internal sense of body position (proprioception), rather than visual information coming from the external world to learn new patterns of movement. Furthermore, researchers found that the greater the reliance on proprioception, the greater the child’s impairment in social skills, motor skills and imitation.Based on findings in this study, researchers plan a follow-up study:
Potential next steps include the use of neuroimaging to investigate whether or not proprioceptive versus visual feedback is actually associated with abnormal patterns of structural and functional connectivity in the brain of children with autism. Additionally, researchers may study if patterns of motor learning can be altered to increase visual connections in specific regions of the brain. Through interventions such as cortical stimulation, biofeedback and behavioral approaches, researchers are looking to investigate if there is an improvement in children with autism’s ability to rely on visual input to guide how they learn a range of behavioral skills.This is one of the few recent findings I've read of which seem to actually suggest directions for useful treatment of challenging symptoms. In essence, it may be possible to put these findings to work as a tool for rebuilding connections in the brain, thus improving physical, emotional and behavioral skills.
Sounds good to me!
Comments
I read the same article, and for me it was kinda anticlimactic. We already knew that autism/Asperger folks appear to lack the neuronal activity associated with “mirror neurons”. If one learns by doing, and mirror neurons mimic “doing”, then logically a neurotypical learns by watching someone perform a task, and an autist does not. That would suggest that the autist learns independently, and would also predict that some of the greatest problem solving engineers and most creative artisans might be autists, because of the well honed skill of solving problems independently their entire life. It would also sadly predict a class of autists who will be utter failures, because they are unable to learn from others, and were not born with the intellect to solve problems independently. This class is probably the class which most benefits from intense training, and intense training on the more talented autists is a waste of resources or worse, since it might interfere with the intrinsic abilities to develop creative skills.
It’s important to discover “how” autistic children learn, so that we might assist them in learning. However, even more important, is that they are allowed to learn and not punished in their classroom because they are different, certainly notaat the hand of their teacher.
Remember the Florida kindergarten teacher who last year lead her impressionable kindergarteners to vote 14-to-2 to kick out a 5-year-old boy with autism from his class? Earlier, the boy had kicked a table leg and threw some crayons, appropriate behavor for a time-out, not to be humiliated and then thrown out forever. The School Board, following recommendation from the school superintendent, suspended the teacher from teaching for one year and took away her tenure. Although she appealed the decision,ad administrative law judge upheld the board’s decision. Yet, last week the same school board voted to reinstate the teacher’s tenure, guaranteeing she will teach another class of little kids this fall. Simply unbelievable! You can read about this reinstatement at:
http://www.ethicsoup.com/2009/06/teacher-reinstated-after-autistic-boy-voted-out-of-kindergarden.html
Most importantly, no matter “how” autistic children learn, is that they are allowed to learn and not punished in their classroom because they are different, certainly not at the hand of the teacher. Remember the Florida kindergarten teacher who last year lead her impressionable kindergarteners to vote 14-to-2 to kick out a 5-year-old boy with autism from his class? Earlier, the boy had kicked a table leg and threw some crayons, appropriate behavor for a time-out, not to be humiliated and then thrown out forever. The School Board, following recommendation from the school superintendent, suspended the teacher from teaching for one year and took away her tenure. Although she appealed the decision,ad administrative law judge upheld the board’s decision. Yet, last week the same school board voted to reinstate the teacher’s tenure, guaranteeing she will teach another class of little kids this fall. Simply unbelievable! You can read about this reinstatement at:
http://www.ethicsoup.com/2009/06/teacher-reinstated-after-autistic-boy-voted-out-of-kindergarden.html
The Florida case really has nothing to do with being punished for how they learn, the vote was due to behavior.
The interesting thing more so will be how the school adapts to the learning differences to all students, autism included but not with autism would have the same exactly learning differences.