Imitation Training in Children with Autism

Authors

  • Jintana Pradujphongpetch Department of Special Education, Faculty of Educational, Pibulsongkram Rajabhat University
  • Anucha Phoommisittiporn Department of Special Education, Faculty of Educational, Pibulsongkram Rajabhat University
  • Suwapatchara Changpinit Department of Special Education, Faculty of Educational, Pibulsongkram Rajabhat University
  • Siriwimol Jaingam Department of Special Education, Faculty of Educational, Pibulsongkram Rajabhat University
  • Paiwan Sudwan Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University

Keywords:

Imitation, Imitation Training, Autism

Abstract

Imitation is a crucial aspect of social learning to improve skills of communication, characteristics, and individual social behavior. Most children with autism often have difficulty with imitation, which results from the connectivity processing dysfunction in cerebellum, mirror neuron system in right inferior parietal lobule and prefrontal cortex. Moreover, the dysfunction affects the impairments of joint attention, eye contact with other people, perceive and understanding of nonverbal language, encoding and recalling process in motor planning for body movement imitation. The imitation training for children with autism should focus on drawing motivation by reinforcement and applying reciprocal interference training by means of verbal and nonverbal language and body part handling to prompt them to imitate correct actions. By this approach, the children with autism are most likely to develop this skill to live in the society with freedom and potential.

References

Anujot, K., Singh, V.J., & Sumandeep, K. (2015). Analysis of certain quantitative gait parameters in children with autism spectrum disorders. International Journal of Applied Research, 1(8), 259-262.

Bernier, R., Aaronson, B., & McPartland, J. (2013). The role of imitation in the observed heterogeneity in EEG mu rhythm in autism and typical developmental. Brain and Cognition, 82(1), 69-75.

Bockler, A., Timmermans, B., Sebanz, N., Vogeley, K., & Schilbach, L. (2014). Effects of Observing eye contact on gaze following in high-functioning autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 44(7), 1651–1658.

Carbone, V. J., Brien, L., Sweeney-Kerwin, E. J., & Albert, K. M. (2013). Teaching eye contact to children with autism: a conceptual analysis and single case study. Education and Treatment of Children, 36(2), 139-159.

Cardon, T.A. (2012). Teaching caregivers to implement video modeling imitation training via iPad for their children with autism. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 6(4), 1389-1400.

Cook, J. (2016). From movement kinematics to social cognition: the case of autism. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B., 371(1693), 1-11.

Cook, J. l., Rapp, J. T., Mann, K., & Mchugh, C. (2017). A practitioner model for increasing eye contact in children with autism. Behavior Modification, 41(3), 1-35.

Cusack, J. P., Williams, J. H., & Neri, P. (2015). Action perception is intact in autism spectrum disorder. The Journal of Neuroscience, 35(5), 1849–1857.

Dadgar, H., Rad, J.A., Soleymani, Z., Khorammi, A., McCleery, J., & Maroufizadeh, S. (2017). The relationship between motor, imitation, and early social communication skills in children with autism. Iran Journal of Psychiatry, 12(4), 236-240.

Diyanni, C. J., Corriveau, K. H., Kurkul, K., Nasrini, J., & Nini, D. (2015). The role of consensus and culture in children’s imitation of inefficient

actions. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 137(1), 99–110.

Dohmen, A., Bishop, V.M., Chat, S., & Roy, P. (2016). Body movement imitation and early language as predictors of later social communication and language outcomes: A longitudinal study. Autism & Developmental Language Impairments, 1(1), 1-15.

Dufek, J. S., Eggleston, J. D, Harry, J. R., & Hickman, R. A. (2017). A comparative evaluation of gait between children with autism and typically developing matched controls. Medical Science, 5(1), 1-12.

Edwards, L. A. (2014). A meta-analysis of imitation abilities in individuals with autism disorders. Autism Research, 7(3), 363– 380.

Ezell, S., Field, T., Nadel, J., Newton, R., Murrey, R., Siddalingappa, V., Allender, S., & Grace, A. (2012). Imitation effects on joint attention behaviors of children with autism. Psychology, 3(9), 681-685.

Falck-Ytter, T., Rehnberg, E., & Bolte, S. (2013). Lack of visual orienting to biological motion and audiovisual synchrony in 3-year-olds with autism. Plos One, 8(7), 1-5.

Freeth, M., Foulsham, T., & Kingstone, A. (2013). What affects social attention? Social presence, eye contact and autistic traits. PLoS ONE, 8(1), 1-10.

Gliga, T., Elsabbagh, M., Hudry, K., Charman, T., Johnson, M. H., & Team, B. (2012). Gaze following, gaze reading, and word learning in children at risk for autism. Child Developmental, 83(3), 926–938.

Gredebäck, G., & Falck-Ytter, T. (2015). Eye movements during action observation. Psychological Science, 10(5), 591–598.

Hirata, S., Nakai, A., Okuzumi, H., Kitajima, Y., Hosobuchi, T., & Kokubun, M. (2015). Motor skills and social impairments in children with autism spectrum disorders: A pilot study using the Japanese version of the developmental coordination disorder questionnaire (DCDQ-J). SAGE Open, 5(3), 1-7.

Jaleha, S., & Mirnawati. (2019). Application of DTT (Discrete trail training) method in improving the eye contact ability of autistic children. Journal of ICSAR, 3(2), 48-52.

Kim, S. H., & Lord, C. (2013). The behavioral manifestations of autism spectrum disorders. In Joseph, D.B., & Patrick, R.H., (Eds.) The Neuroscience of Autism Spectrum Disorders (pp. 25-67). New York, Elsevier Inc.

Kleeberger, V., & Mirenda, (2010). Teaching generalized imitation skills to a preschooler with autism using video modeling. Journal Positive

Behavior Interventions, 12(2), 116-127.

Lee, C., & Bo, J. (2015). Motor functioning in children with autism spectrum disorder. Acta Psychopathologica, 1(2), 1-3.

Lee, J. M., Kyeong, S., Kim, E., & Cheon, K. (2016). Abnormalities of inter-and intra- hemispheric functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorders: A study using the autism brain data exchange database. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 10(191), 1-11.

Liu, T., Hamilton, M., Davis, L., & ElGarhy, S. (2014). Gross motor performance by children with autism spectrum disorder and typically developing children on TGMD-2. Journal of Child & Adolescent Behavior, 2(1), 1-4.

Mahone, E. M., Ryan, M., Ference, L., Morris-berry, C., & Singer, H. S. (2014). Neuropsychological function in children with primary complex motor stereotypies. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurological, 56(10), 1001–1008.

McLeod, S. A. (2011). Albert bandura social learning theory – simply psychology.

Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html.

Pan, C. Y. (2011). The efficacy of an aquatic program on physical fitness and aquatic skills in children with and without autism spectrum disorders. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 5(1), 657–665.

Paulraj, S. J., Karim, R. A., & Vetrayan, J. (2015). Evaluation of occupational performance imitation intervention on three imitation learnings among autism: Case series. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 202(22), 58 –66. Penney, A. & Schwartz, I. (2019). Effects of coaching on the fidelity of parent implementation of reciprocal imitation training. Autism, 23(6), 1497-1507.Postma-Nilsenová, M., Kastel, M., & Balsters, M. (2014). Effects of eye gaze direction on vocal imitation in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: Does joint attention matter?. British Journal of Developmental, 466(1), 2693-2698.

Sanefuji, W., & Yamamoto, T. (2014). The developmental trajectory of imitation in infants with autism spectrum disorders: a prospective study. Psychology, 5(11), 1313-1320.

Sato, W., Sawada, R., Uono, S., Yoshimura, S., Kochiyama, T., Kubota, Y., Sakihama, M., & Toichi, M. (2017). Impaired detection of happy facial expressions in autism. Scientific Reports, 7(13340), 1-12.

Sauter, D. S., Panattoni, C., & Happ, F. (2012). Children’s recognition of emotions from vocal cues. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 31(1), 97-113.

Scharoun, S. M., Markoulakis, R. A., Fletcher, P. C., & Bryden, P. J. (2015). The influence of motor abilities in children with autism spectrum disorder on caregiver experiences: A pilot study. Advance in Pediatric Research, 2(19), 1-9.

Sevlever, M. (2014). An analysis of emotion recognition and facial processing across human and cartoon stimuli in individuals with autism spectrum disorders. (Doctoral dissertation). Auburn University, USA.

Studenka, B. E., & Cummins, D. (2017). Preliminary evidence for inflexibility of motor planning in children with autism spectrum disorder. Autism Open Access, 7(208), 1-6.

Taheri, A. R., Alemi, M., Meghdari, A., Pour- Etemad, H. R., & Holderread, S. L. (2015). Clinical application of humanoid robots in playing imitation games for autistic children in Iran. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 176(1), 898–906.

Taylor, J. P. (2014). Teaching reciprocal imitation training to parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) through combined internet-based and in vivo instruction. (Doctoral dissertation). University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

Tell, D., Davidson, D., & Camras, L. A. (2014). Recognition of emotion from facial expressions with direct or averted eye gaze and varying expression intensities in children with autism disorder and typically developing children. Hindawi Publishing Corporation Autism Research and Treatment, 816137(1), 1-11.

Traynor, J. M & Hall, G. B. (2015). Structural and functional neuroimaging of restricted and repetitive behavior in autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Intellectual Disability – Diagnosis and Treatment, 3(1), 21-34.

Ugur, E., Nagai, Y., Sahin, E., Oztop, E., & Member. (2015). Staged development of robot skills: Behavior formation, affordance learning and imitation with motionese. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development, 7(2), 1-22.

United States Department of Health & Human Services. (2018). Autism Prevalence Slightly Higher in CDC’s ADDM Network. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0426-autism-prevalence.html.

Uppal, N., Wicinski, B., Buxbaum, J. D., Heinsen, H., Schmitz, C., & Hof, P. R. (2014). Neuropathology of the anterior midcingulate cortex in young children with autism. Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology, 73(9), 891-902.

Van Etten, H. M., & Carver, L. J. (2015). Does impaired social motivation drive imitation Deficits in children with autism spectrum disorder?. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2(3), 310–319.

Vanvuchelen, M., Schuerbeeck, L. V., Roeyers,H., & Weerdt, W. (2013). Understanding the mechanisms behind deficits in imitation: Do individuals with autism know ‘what’ to imitate and do they know ‘how’ to imitate?. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 34(1), 538–545.

Vetrayan, J., Zin, M. M., Priya, S. J., & Paulraj, V. (2015). Relationship between visual reception and imitation in school function among autism. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 202(1), 67 – 75.

Vivanti, G. & Rogers, S. J. (2014). Autism and the mirror neuron system: Insights from learning and teaching. Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B, 369(1), 1-7.

Wang, C., Williamson, R. A., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2015). Imitation as a mechanism in cognitive development: a cross-cultural investigation of 4-year-old children’s rule learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(562), 1-8.

Downloads

Published

2022-06-13

How to Cite

Pradujphongpetch, J., Phoommisittiporn , A., Changpinit , S. . ., Jaingam , S. ., & Sudwan , P. . . (2022). Imitation Training in Children with Autism. Journal Of Ratchasuda Institute for Research and Development of Persons With Disabilities, 18(1), 142–158. Retrieved from https://so03.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/RSjournal/article/view/261676