Autism Spectrum Disorder
Conditions
Keywords
Written production, Handwriting, Graphomotor skills, Language, Graphic tablet
Brief summary
The main objective is to assess the psycholinguistic and graphomotor characteristics of written production in patients with ASD. The secondary objectives are: * Identifying links between specific deficits of ASD and difficulties in written production. * Identifying links between the severity of ASD and difficulties in written production. The primary evaluation criterion is the quantity of written production, namely the number of words produced in 5 minutes on a text copying task (BHK) and in 15 minutes on each of the two written production tasks (descriptive and persuasive). The secondary evaluation criteria are: * Graphomotor indicators of written production (writing speed, pre-writing time, pause time, writing time, handwriting size, results obtained in BHK (number of words produced, letter height, line parallelism, telescoping, ambiguous letters). * Cognitive and psycholinguistic indicators of written production (presence of titles, presence of paragraphs, number of sentences, number of words per sentence, lexical richness, lexical field, number of action verbs, morphological complexity, number of syntactic markers related to oneself, number of syntactic markers related to others, number of spelling errors, evaluation of the overall quality of the produced text). * Results obtained in tests (writing habits questionnaire, Autism Diagnostic Observation Scale (second edition), Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (fourth edition) - Similarities subtest, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (fourth edition) - Vocabulary subtest, Rey Figure, MASC).
Detailed description
Context : Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is one of the neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) characterized by persistent deficits in communication and social interaction, and restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, and activities (DSM-5 diagnostic criteria; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). These symptoms are present from early developmental stages and correspond to neurological conditions characterized by structural and/or functional brain abnormalities. While diagnosis is typically made in childhood (average age of 4 years (Rogé, 2019)), many adults seek diagnostic evaluation for ASD from autism resource centers (CRA). This is partly due to the diversity of symptoms that can lead to a 'diagnostic odyssey' spanning several years (Rutherford et al., 2016). Even though the dyad identified by DSM-5 allows for precise diagnosis, many other clinical signs can be found in patients with ASD (mood disorders, sleep disorders, impulsivity/hyperactivity, anxiety, motor disorders, language disorders, etc.), which can complicate diagnosis and delay the implementation of early and appropriate intervention. In this context, an interesting avenue is the study of writing characteristics in patients with ASD. Indeed, several studies show that patients with ASD present deficits in motor skills as well as in several psycholinguistic domains such as grammar, morphology, and phonology (Habib et al., 2019). Furthermore, individuals with ASD may exhibit specific semantic and pragmatic impairments (Bishop, 1989). These findings may provide additional useful clues in a perspective of differential diagnosis and understanding of cognitive functioning.
Interventions
DIAGNOSTIC_TESTCognitive and writing tests
* Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - fourth edition (Similarities and Vocabulary subtests) * MASC (Movie for assessment of social cognition) * Rey figure * BHK (Quick Writing Assessment Scale) * Descriptive text writing * Persuasive text writing
Sponsors
University of Poitiers
Centre Hospitalier de Niort
Study design
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
DIAGNOSTIC
Masking
NONE
Intervention model description
The study is part of category 2 of research involving humans and which corresponds to an interventional study with minimal risks and constraints. The patient is asked to return to carry out this study.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
for experimental group only: * ASD diagnosis according to DSM-5 criteria and established by an interdisciplinary Inclusion Criteria for both experimental and control groups: * Age ≥ 18 years Age ≥ 18 years and matching typical adult subjects to ASD individuals in age (plus or minus 5 years), sex, and education level * The person participating in the research has read, understood, and signed the study consent form * The person is proficient in the French language * The person is affiliated with a social security system
Exclusion criteria
for experimental group only: * Diagnosis of any other NDD than ASD (e.g., Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Specific Learning Disorder, Language Disorder, Coordination Disorder, Intellectual Disorder)
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Assessment of psycholinguistic and graphomotor characteristics of written production in patients with autism spectrum disorder (asd) | 18 months | Number of words produced in both 3 written production tasks (copy, descriptive text, and persuasive text) : adults with ASD vs adults with typical development |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Identifying links between specific deficits of ASD and difficulties in written production | 18 months | Identifying links between theory of mind (MASC results), which is one of the main explicative model of the autistic functioning, and number of words produced in both 3 written production tasks. Indeed, the writing activity involves taking into account the recipient, and thus the theory of mind. |
| Identifying links between the severity of ASD and difficulties in written production | 18 months | Identifying links between the severity of ASD (ADOS-2 results) and number of words produced in both 3 written production tasks. Indeed, the severity of ASD can affect the ability to communicate, which is one of the diagnostic criteria of ASD, and thus the ability to produce a text. |
Countries
France
Contacts
Primary ContactEvan E Launay, Mr
Outcome results
None listed