Abstract
This article comprehensively reviews motor impairments in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to: (1) determine the prevalence of motor problems in children with ASD; (2) understand the nature of motor difficulties in ASD and whether they are consistent with developmental coordination disorder (DCD); and (3) determine if the term DCD was used as a co-occurring diagnosis in children with ASD after publication of the DSM-5 in 2013. The following databases were systematically searched: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO from 2010 to December 2021. Articles were included if they: (1) were peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal; (2) included children with ASD who were between 5 and 12 years; (3) used motor or function measures to assess motor abilities in children with ASD. Studies that included children with intellectual disabilities were excluded. Two independent reviewers reviewed titles, abstracts, and full-text articles for inclusion. Twenty-seven studies met the inclusion criteria and were assessed for quality by two independent reviewers using the Appraisal tool for Cross-Sectional Studies. The majority of articles (92.5%) indicated that 50–88% of children with ASD had significant motor impairments on standardized motor assessments and/or functional questionnaires. The nature of motor and function problems in ASD were consistent with DCD; however, only three out of 20 papers (15%) that were published from 2014 described the motor problems as DCD. One study reported that 15.1% of children with ASD with motor impairments had a co-occurring diagnosis of DCD, suggesting that DCD is under-recognized in this clinical population.
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Melika Kangarani-Farahani received support from the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine Graduate Award (#6442), Effie I. Lefeaux Scholarship in Intellectual Disability, and Margaret Hood Scholarship in Occupational Therapy Myrah Malik was supported by a University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine Graduate Award (#6442) and Syd Vernon Graduate Student Award. Jill Zwicker is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Grant No. CIHR 201512MSH-360883-141638), BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, and Canada Excellence Research Chairs Program (Grant No. 950-233161).
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Melika Kangarani-Farahani and Jill Zwicker contributed to study conception and design. Data collection and data extraction were completed by Melika Kangarani-Farahani and Myrah Malik. Data analysis was conducted by Melika Kangarani-Farahani and Jill Zwicker. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Melika Kangarani-Farahani and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Kangarani-Farahani, M., Malik, M.A. & Zwicker, J.G. Motor Impairments in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. J Autism Dev Disord 54, 1977–1997 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-05948-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-05948-1