We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
Examining Phenotypical Heterogeneity and its Underlying Factors in Gesture Skills of Chinese Autistic Children: Clustering Analysis.
- Authors
Zhang, Xin; Song, Xue-Ke; So, Wing-Chee
- Abstract
Purpose: The heterogeneity of autism is well documented, but few studies have studied the heterogeneity of gesture production ability in autistic children. The present study aimed to identify subgroups of autistic children who displayed heterogeneous gesture production abilities and explore the underlying factors, including autism characteristics, intellectual ability, and language ability, that were associated with the heterogeneity. Methods: A total of 65 Chinese autistic children (mean age = 5;3) participated. Their autism characteristics and intellectual ability were assessed by standardized measurements. Language output and gesture production were captured from a parent-child interaction task. Results: We conducted a hierarchical cluster analysis and identified four distinct clusters. Cluster 1 and Cluster 2 both had low gesture production whereas Cluster 3 and Cluster 4 had high gesture production. Both Clusters 1 and 2 had relatively strong autism characteristics, in comparison to Clusters 3 and 4. Conclusions: Our findings revealed that children with stronger autism characteristics may gesture less often than those with weaker characteristics. However, the relationship between language ability and intellectual ability and gesture production was not clear. These findings shed light on the directions of intervention on gesture production for autistic children, especially those with stronger autism characteristics.
- Subjects
HONG Kong (China); CHINA; LANGUAGE &; languages; INTELLECT; CLUSTER analysis (Statistics); RESEARCH funding; AUTISM; PARENT-child relationships; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; BODY language; ASPERGER'S syndrome; PHENOTYPES; CHILDREN
- Publication
Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders, 2024, Vol 54, Issue 9, p3504
- ISSN
0162-3257
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10803-023-06049-9