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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自闭症儿童在摆动末期时的下肢变异幅度较小，是其行走模式的特征。


背景 有趣的是，患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童的下肢行走模式差异很大，但这一点尚未得到充分量化。因此，本研究的目的是通过与地面步行过程中典型发育的个体相比，通过自闭症儿童的下肢协调性和时空特征来检查步行模式的变异性。方法 计算 11 名自闭症儿童和 9 名在每个步态子阶段具有典型发育的儿童的大腿-小腿、腿-足和大腿-足节段对的双侧连续相对相位变异性。此外，还计算并比较了左右步幅长度和步幅宽度。模型统计用于测试每个自闭症儿童与具有典型发育的总体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的反应与典型发育之间的意义。计算步幅长度和步幅宽度的变异系数和效应大小。研究结果 分析显示，自闭症儿童在每个步态子阶段表现出变异性差异。值得注意的是，除了两名自闭症儿童外，所有的自闭症儿童在摇摆末期的所有节段夫妇中都表现出较小的变异性。步幅长度的差异相对较小，然而，自闭症儿童的步幅宽度变异系数幅度较大。解释 这一发现表明，自闭症儿童在准备脚接触地面时可能有有限的或首选的运动策略。这项研究的结果表明，变异性可能是自闭症儿童运动过程中的一个可识别特征。