Tools
Tools
Santra, R, Pacheco, C, Crocetti, D, Vidal, R, Mostofsky, S and Tunçgenç, B 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1135-1004,
2025.
Evaluating computerised assessment of motor imitation (CAMI) for identifying autism-specific difficulties not observed for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder or neurotypical development.
British Journal of Psychiatry.
ISSN 0007-1250
Abstract
Background: Reliable and specific biomarkers that can distinguish autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) from commonly co-occurring attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are lacking, causing misses and delays in diagnosis, and reducing access to interventions and quality of life.
Aims: To examine whether an innovative, brief (1-min), videogame method called Computerised Assessment of Motor Imitation (CAMI), can identify ASD-specific imitation differences compared with neurotypical children and children with ADHD.
Method: This cross-sectional study used CAMI alongside standardised parent-report (Social Responsiveness Scale, Second Edition) and observational measures of autism (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-Second Edition; ADOS-2), ADHD (Conners) and motor ability (Physical and Neurological Examination for Soft Signs). The sample comprised 183 children aged 7–13 years, with ADHD (without ASD), with ASD (with and without ADHD) and who were neurotypical.
Results: Regardless of co-occurring ADHD, children with ASD showed poorer CAMI performance than neurotypical children (P < 0.0001; adjusted R2 = 0.28), whereas children with ADHD and neurotypical children showed similar CAMI performance. Receiver operating curve and support vector machine analyses showed that CAMI distinguishes ASD from both neurotypical children (80% true positive rate) and children with ADHD (70% true positive rate), with a high success rate significantly above chance. Among children with ASD, poor CAMI performance was associated with increased autism traits, particularly ADOS-2 measures of social affect and restricted and repetitive behaviours (adjusted R2 = 0.23), but not with ADHD traits or motor ability.
Conclusions: Four levels of analyses confirm that poor imitation measured by the low-cost and scalable CAMI method specifically distinguishes ASD not only from neurotypical development, but also from commonly co-occurring ADHD.
| Item Type: | Journal article |
|---|---|
| Publication Title: | British Journal of Psychiatry |
| Creators: | Santra, R., Pacheco, C., Crocetti, D., Vidal, R., Mostofsky, S. and Tunçgenç, B. |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Date: | 28 January 2025 |
| ISSN: | 0007-1250 |
| Identifiers: | Number Type 10.1192/bjp.2024.235 DOI 2336279 Other |
| Rights: | This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Divisions: | Schools > School of Social Sciences |
| Record created by: | Jonathan Gallacher |
| Date Added: | 15 Apr 2025 09:02 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Apr 2025 09:02 |
| URI: | https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53409 |
Actions (login required)
 |
Edit View |
Statistics
Views
Views per month over past year
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year
