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Open access publications by faculty, staff, postdocs, and graduate students in the Department of Physical Therapy.
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Browsing Open Access Publications by Author "Bhat, Anjana N."
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Item Atypical object exploration in infants at-risk for autism during the first year of life(Frontiers Media S.A., 2015-06-16) Kaur, Maninderjit; Srinivasan, Sudha M.; Bhat, Anjana N.; Kaur, Maninderjit; Srinivasan, Sudha M.; Bhat, Anjana N.Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder usually diagnosed by the end of the second year of life. Early signs of ASD within the first year of life are still unclear. The main purpose of the present study was to compare object exploration skills between infants at-risk for ASD and typically developing (TD) infants to determine early markers for autism within the first year of life. Sixteen at-risk infants and 16 TD infants were longitudinally followed from 6 to 15 months of age during an object exploration task involving three objects with distinct size, shape, and texture, i.e., a long rattle, a rigid circular ball, and a soft circular koosh ball. All sessions were videotaped for coding of manual exploration (grasping and dropping), oral exploration (mouthing), and visual exploration (looking). We also obtained follow-up outcomes using various developmental questionnaires at 18 months and email follow-up on developmental delays/ASD diagnosis after the infants’ second birthdays. Our results showed object-based differences in exploration patterns that extended across both groups. We also noticed context-dependent group differences for various exploratory behaviors across objects and ages. Specifically, at 6 months, at-risk infants showed less grasping of the rigid ball as well as less mouthing and greater looking at the rattle compared to TD infants. At 9 and 12 months, at-risk infants demonstrated significantly lower levels of purposeful dropping of all objects and greater looking at the rattle. Lastly, at 15 months, at-risk infants showed persistent mouthing of the rigid ball and rattle compared to TD infants. In addition, 10 out of 16 at-risk infants developed various motor, social, and language delays or ASD diagnosis at follow-up. Taken together, early context-dependent delays/abnormalities in object exploration could be markers for future developmental delays in infants at-risk for autism. Moreover, promoting early object experiences through socially embedded, free and structured play could have significant implications for multisystem development including perceptuo-motor, social communication, and cognitive development in at-risk infants.Item Autism-Related Differences in Cortical Activation When Observing, Producing, and Imitating Communicative Gestures: An fNIRS Study(Brain Sciences, 2023-09-04) Su, Wan-Chun; Culotta, McKenzie; Mueller, Jessica; Tsuzuki, Daisuke; Bhat, Anjana N.Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties in gestural communication during social interactions. However, the neural mechanisms involved in naturalistic gestural communication remain poorly understood. In this study, cortical activation patterns associated with gestural communication were examined in thirty-two children with and without ASD (mean age: 11.0 years, SE: 0.6 years). Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to record cortical activation while children produced, observed, or imitated communicative gestures. Children with ASD demonstrated more spatial and temporal errors when performing and imitating communicative gestures. Although both typically developing (TD) children and children with ASD showed left-lateralized cortical activation during gesture production, children with ASD showed hyperactivation in the middle/inferior frontal gyrus (MIFG) during observation and imitation, and hypoactivation in the middle/superior temporal gyrus (MSTG) during gesture production compared to their TD peers. More importantly, children with ASD exhibited greater MSTG activation during imitation than during gesture production, suggesting that imitation could be an effective intervention strategy to engage cortical regions crucial for processing and producing gestures. Our study provides valuable insights into the neural mechanisms underlying gestural communication difficulties in ASD, while also identifying potential neurobiomarkers that could serve as objective measures for evaluating intervention effectiveness in children with ASD.