Using Movement to Diagnose and Treat Autism

By taking advantage of disrupted motor connections in the brains of autistic children, researchers say it may be possible for affected kids to guide their own therapy.

Elizabeth Torres, a computational neuroscientist at Rutgers University, explores how movements reflect the way people interact with and sense their environments.

In two papers published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, Torres, working with a computer scientist and physicist, described a way to both diagnose autism via movement patterns, and potentially treat the condition using similar action-based strategies. They developed a method that focuses on the spontaneous movements that autistic children, even infants, make unintentionally. The research team measured tiny fluctuations of movement among autistic patients, and compared these movements to those of normally developing subjects.




Using Movement to Diagnose and Treat Autism | TIME.com





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"Life on the Autism Spectrum can be ENJOYable."