Social cooperation skills and fNIRS-based cortical activation in children with and without autism spectrum disorder
Date
2019
Authors
Culotta, McKenzie
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Many everyday skills are learned by observing and moving with others during cooperative actions. A majority of the social cooperative action research has focused on young preschool children and little is known about the developmental changes in social cooperation in typically developing (TD) school-age children. Hence, the first aim of this thesis focused on understanding the developmental changes in social cooperation behaviors between younger and older school-age children. Another focus of this research is to better understand the atypical patterns of social cooperation in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Children with ASD present with significant social-perceptual impairments and comorbid deficits in visuo-motor coordination that might affect their ability to adjust their actions to others during social cooperation tasks. Difficulties with social cooperation will ultimately affect an ASD individual’s ability to learn through observation and to connect with their peers/caregivers. Hence, the second aim of this thesis compared social cooperation behaviors between children with and without ASD. ☐ Our lab’s previous work has reported improved affect, verbalization, and motor skill performance following 8-weeks of socially-embedded movement interventions offered to children with ASD; however, the neural activation patterns underlying such changes were unclear. Various cortical regions may be activated during social cooperation behaviors including but not limited to the Mirror Neuron Systems consisting of the Inferior Parietal Lobe (IPL), Superior Temporal Sulcus (STS) and Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG), the sensori-motor cortices or the Pre /Post Central Gyri (PCG), as well as prefrontal cortices or the Middle Frontal Gyrus (MFG). The task requirements of social cooperation such as reorienting attention to the task elements/partners, working memory, motor planning, motor anticipation and execution would result in activation within the aforementioned cortical regions. Hence, within each aim we will examine both, the behavioral patterns of social cooperation and associated cortical activation during a naturalistic social cooperation building game using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), a cutting-edge, safe, and child-friendly neuroimaging tool. ☐ Study 1 (Aim 1) examined developmental differences in behavior and cortical activation between younger and older TD children using fNIRS technology during a Lincoln Log building game involving four conditions (Coincide, Lead, Follow, and Turn-take). Our first finding was that younger children had greater motor, spatial and planning errors compared to older children. Second, we noted an age-related increase in prefrontal and mirror neuron system activation but not in the sensori-motor cortices. All TD children showed more left lateralization in the sensorimotor cortices in spite of the bimanual nature of the task. An additional hemispheric difference found was greater right lateralization in the IPL region of the older children, which could be due to their better visuo-motor and visuo-spatial processing abilities. In terms of task-based differences, the superior temporal cortices had greater activation in the more social, Coincide and Turn-Take conditions compared to the other two conditions. Finally, younger children with greater cortical activation had better motor performance and fewer behavioral errors and older children with greater cortical activation showed better socialization skills. ☐ In study 2 (Aim 2), we compared behavioral and fNIRS-based cortical activation patterns between children with and without ASD during the same aforementioned Lincoln Log building game. Our first finding was that children with ASD had greater behavioral errors, took more time to complete the task, and did not have established handedness patterns compared to the TD group. A second finding related to hemispheric lateralization was that children with ASD did not have strong lateralization as was found in the TD group which aligns with findings of atypical or non-existent lateralization in ASD. Third, in terms of task-based differences children with ASD showed no differential activation in the superior temporal cortices as was evident in the TD children, which could be due to lack of social information received and poor visuo-motor correspondence to partner’s actions. In terms of group differences, we found that children with ASD had reduced activation in the STS region and greater activation in the IPL region compared to the TD group. We have related these findings to differences in social-perceptual information processing, visuo-motor coordination, as well as executive functioning in the children with ASD. ☐ Taken together, these behavioral and activation patterns offer important neurobiomarkers of social cooperation impairments in children with ASD. This project has uncovered neural mechanisms of cooperative actions that can be used as objective biomarkers to examine effects of therapies targeting social cooperation skills of children and adolescents with ASD. In the future, we plan to develop training activities to facilitate social cooperation and will also examine objective changes in various impaired cortical regions following the intervention.