Gesture imitation in autism. II. Symbolic gestures and pantomimed object use.

We report an experimental study of imitation of two types of meaningful gestures: (a) social-communicative gestures, and (b) pantomimed actions with objects (including counterfunctional object use) by children and adolescents with autism. Controls were (a) children with nonautistic developmental delays, matched for chronological age and receptive language age, and (b) typically developing children matched for receptive language. Children in both comparison groups imitated actions more accurately than did children with autism, who nonetheless demonstrated understanding of the meaning of the gestures. However, the autistic group tended to have difficulty naming gestures and also was less able than controls to produce actions on verbal request. Children with lower levels of language ability, including those with autism, had difficulty imitating unconventional use of objects, instead using the object for their conventional functions. The discussion addresses the implications of these results and our own previous related findings for representational and executive accounts of praxic deficits in autistic spectrum disorders.