Imitation in autism. A preliminary research note

Would dogs copy irrelevant actions from their human caregiver?

Companion dogs learn easily from humans, including human behavior, human communication, and some aspects of the human-made environment. They benefit from having the opportunity to learn from humans and are able to spontaneously synchronize their behavior with that of their caregiver. Here, we tested whether pet dogs would show a special form of observational learning, one that has been considered uniquely human. Indeed, humans show overimitation, the faithful copying of causally irrelevant actions, but great apes do not. Because in humans this peculiar form of imitation is strongly motivated by social factors, such as affiliation or conformity, we hypothesized that domesticated and enculturated dogs are more likely than apes are to copy such actions, especially if shown by their affiliated caregiver. Indeed, half of the dogs replicated a causally irrelevant action that was demonstrated by their caregiver, and about the same number did this whether they saw only this action being demonstrated or being demonstrated before or after a causally relevant, functional action. The demonstration of a causally relevant action, one that is immediately followed by access to food, thus does not inhibit the copying of an action that is spatially separated and functionally opaque. Given that the copying frequency in this study was low overall, these results suggest evidence for overimitation in dogs, which might challenge the human uniqueness of this type of social learning.

Slowing down the presentation of facial and body movements enhances imitation performance in children with severe autism

Imitation deficits observed among individuals with autism could be partly explained by the excessive speed of biological movements to be perceived and then reproduced. Along with this assumption, slowing down the speed of presentation of these movements might improve their imitative performances. To test this hypothesis, 19 children with autism, 37 typically-developing children and 17 children with Down syndrome were asked to reproduce facial and body movements presented on a computer at a normal/ecological and two slowed down speeds. Our main result showed that a subgroup of individuals with severe autism better reproduced the movements when presented slowly than at the ecological speed. This finding opens a new window for comprehension and rehabilitation of perceptual and imitative deficits in autism.

Application of integrated yoga therapy to increase imitation skills in children with autism spectrum disorder

Background/Aim:

Children with autism exhibit significant deficits in imitation skills, which impede the acquisition of more complex behavior and socialization. Imitation is often targeted early in intervention plans and continues to be addressed throughout the child’s treatment. The use of integrated approach to yoga therapy (IAYT) as a complementary therapy for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is rarely reported and little is known on the effectiveness of such therapies. This study investigated IAYT as a treatment method with children with ASD to increase imitative skills.

Materials and Methods:

Parents and six children with ASD participated in a 10-month program of 5-weekly sessions and regular practice at home. Pre, mid and post treatment assessments included observers and parent ratings of children’s imitation skills in tasks related to imitation skills such as gross motor actions, vocalization, complex imitation, oral facial movements and imitating breathing exercises.

Results:

Improvement in children’s imitation skills especially pointing to body, postural and oral facial movements. Parents reported change in the play pattern of these children with toys, peers and objects at home.

Conclusions:

This study indicates that IAYT may offer benefits as an effective tool to increase imitation, cognitive skills and social-communicative behaviors in children with ASD. In addition, children exhibited increased skills in eye contact, sitting tolerance, non-verbal communication and receptive skills to verbal commands related to spatial relationship.

Social cognition and the evolution of language: constructing cognitive phylogenies

Human language and social cognition are closely linked: advanced social cognition is necessary for children to acquire language, and language allows forms of social understanding (and, more broadly, culture) that would otherwise be impossible. Both "language" and "social cognition" are complex constructs, involving many independent cognitive mechanisms, and the comparative approach provides a powerful route to understanding the evolution of such mechanisms. We provide a broad comparative review of mechanisms underlying social intelligence in vertebrates, with the goal of determining which human mechanisms are broadly shared, which have evolved in parallel in other clades, and which, potentially, are uniquely developed in our species. We emphasize the importance of convergent evolution for testing hypotheses about neural mechanisms and their evolution.

The evolution of imitation: what do the capacities of non-human animals tell us about the mechanisms of imitation?

In this paper, we review reports and present new empirical data from studies with marmosets and dogs that address the correspondence problem of imitation research. We focus on the question of how it is possible to transform visual information into matching motor acts. Here, the important issue is not the learning of a complex skill, but determining the copying fidelity of animals at different levels of behavioural organization. As a theoretical framework, we suggest a classification in terms of movement, action and result, which shows a positive relationship between the organizational level of imitation and matching degree. While the monkey studies have provided evidence of very precise copying of movements and, to a lesser degree, of behaviours, the dog studies have provided evidence of action copying and the reproduction of results. In a Do-as-I-do study, a dog attempted to reproduce the results of demonstrated object manipulations at the expense of movement details. Transitive actions were more easily replicated than intransitive ones, and familiarity of actions had a major influence. The discussion of these findings addresses the question of the neuronal mechanisms underlying imitation and whether a single mechanism is sufficient to explain the different levels of copying fidelity.

Imitation of pretend play acts by children with autism and Down syndrome

Although there has recently been considerable research interest in the difficulties that children with autism have engaging in pretend play, little attention has been paid to the ability of these children to imitate pretend play acts. Furthermore, suggestions that children with Down syndrome have relatively advanced abilities in pretend play have not been accompanied by an examination of their capacity to imitate pretend play. Three groups of children: autistic, Down syndrome, and normally developing were studied for their capacity to imitate single pretend acts and a series of pretend acts that formed scripts. While the children with autism were surprisingly better than the other two groups on the single-scheme task, they demonstrated specific difficulties on the multischeme task. Results are discussed in relation to current theories of autism and the notion of imitation.