BACKGROUND Anecdotally, children with Autism Spectrum Disorder have highly variable lower extremity walking patterns, yet, this has not been sufficiently quantified. As such, the purpose of this study was to examine walking pattern variability by way of lower extremity coordination and spatio-temporal characteristics in children with autism compared with individuals with typical development during over-ground walking. METHODS Bilateral continuous relative phase variability was computed for the thigh-leg, leg-foot, and thigh-foot segment couples for 11 children with autism and 9 children with typical development at each gait sub-phase. Furthermore, left and right stride lengths and stride width were computed and compared. The Model Statistic was utilized to test for statistical differences in variability between each child with autism to an aggregate group with typical development. Effect sizes were computed to determine the meaningfulness between responses for children with autism and typical development. Coefficient of variation and effect sizes were computed for stride lengths and stride width. FINDINGS Analysis revealed that children with autism exhibited differences in variability in each gait sub-phase. Notably, all but two children with autism exhibited lesser variability in all segment couples during terminal swing. Differences in stride lengths were relatively minimal, however, greater coefficient of variation magnitudes in stride width were observed in children with autism. INTERPRETATION This finding reveals that children with autism may have limited or a preferred movement strategy when preparing the foot for ground contact. The findings from this study suggest variability may be an identifiable characteristic during movement in children with autism.

中文翻译：

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下肢摆动过程中下肢变异性的幅度较小，表现出自闭症儿童的行走方式。

背景技术轶事，患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童具有高度可变的下肢行走模式，然而，这尚未被充分量化。因此，本研究的目的是通过自闭症儿童与地面行走过程中典型发育个体的下肢协调性和时空特征研究行走模式的变异性。方法计算了11个自闭症儿童和9个典型步态发育阶段儿童的大腿，小腿，大腿和大腿节段双侧连续相对相变。此外，计算并比较了左右的步幅长度和步幅宽度。模型统计量用于测试每个自闭症儿童与具有典型发育状况的聚集组之间变异性的统计差异。计算效应大小以确定自闭症儿童与典型发育之间的反应之间的意义。计算步幅长度和步幅宽度的变异系数和效应大小。结果分析显示，自闭症儿童在每个步态亚阶段的变异性均存在差异。值得注意的是，除了两个自闭症儿童外，在末梢摆动过程中，所有节段对的变异性均较小。步幅的差异相对较小，但是，自闭症儿童的步幅变化系数幅度更大。解释这一发现表明，自闭症儿童在准备脚与地面接触时可能会采取有限的或首选的运动策略。这项研究的发现表明，自闭症儿童运动期间的变异性可能是一个可识别的特征。