Bodies at rest and motion

A study out of England has found that autistic children are able to interpret others' mental states based on pictures of people with animated expressions. This finding contradicts previous research that indicated that children with autism could not read facial expressions, which seemed to explain their often severe social deficits.

Another explanation comes out of a study published last year by researchers at Carnegie Mellon and Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, in which young children with autism proved to be delayed in their ability to categorize objects and to distinguish between living and nonliving things. This stemmed from their failure to understand the different ways in which objects move. A key characteristic that differentiates living and nonliving things is the ability of the former to move on their own, and as humans, we rely on the motions of others--a hand reaching out to shake ours, a person running toward us--to help us decipher their actions and intentions.

"People have not really studied these conceptual deficits in very young children as the possible basis for the social and cognitive deficits in older children and adults with autism," said Carnegie Mellon psychologist David Rakison, who co-authored the paper with Cynthia Johnson, director of the Autism Center at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and an assistant professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

You can read more about this study here. 

Jonathan Potts