Motion Analysis in Autism: Quantification and Classification of Dancing and Walking Tasks

Action-perception cycles have been described to be impaired in autism, however, the neural basis of action understanding and motor function is still poorly characterized. Autistic individuals often present with motor coordination problems, including the core symptoms of autism. In this work, we analyze the motion of autistic and neurotypical groups during naturalistic tasks (walking and dancing) performed during an imitation paradigm. With the goal of demonstrating potential group discrimination at the trial level, we performed quantification and classification analyses of 3D motion data between groups. The results show significant differences between groups, with strong classification separability with a single trial, for all tasks. These results corroborate previous literature, contributing with a trial-level approach, and encourage future research related to action understanding and motor function in autism.