For a study, it was determined that Fragile X syndrome (FXS) was associated with a high degree of Autism spectrum disorder (ASD). FXS affects 50–70% of males who have it. Motor impairments were a common feature across ASD and FXS, which may assist in understanding autistic behavior in persons with FXS. Motor skills, as outlined above, had a structural role in FXS. Researchers sought to determine whether motor trajectories differ across direct assessment and parental report fine and gross motor development measures for FXS with and without autism, as well as typical development, while taking into account cognitive ability. In this prospective longitudinal study, 42 children with FXS and 24 of them also had ASD (FXS’+ASD), as well as 40 typical youngsters, were studied. The Mullen Scales of Early Learning measured fine and gross motor abilities directly, while the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales assessed a parent-reported fine and gross motor abilities. To examine the divergence in developmental motor trajectories between groups when controlling for cognitive level, random slopes and independent intercepts multilevel models were used. The study determined that children with FXS+ASD differ significantly from TD youngsters in terms of gross and fine motor skills by 9 months, even when the cognitive level is taken into account. When the cognitive level was taken into account, the FXS+ASD and FXS groups diverged considerably by 18 months in fine and gross motor skills. This study is the first to explore long-term trends in motor development in children with FXS and ASD using both direct testing and parent-report measures of fine and gross motor skills. Furthermore, it is among the first to account for nonverbal cognitive delays, a step towards elucidating the isolated role of motor impairments in FXS with and without ASD. The study’s findings indicate that motor impairments, which were common in FXS, might be a signal representing greater underlying genetic risk or a potential catalyst or consequence of co-occurring autism.
Link:jneurodevdisorders.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s11689-019-9281-1
