Imitation

How does imitation manifest in autism and what does it mean for social interactions?

Imitation – from infants cooing along to their parents to adolescents learning about cultural norms – is an integral part of our daily social interactions, shown to be associated with improving bonding and learning. Dr Tuncgenc has been working with computer scientists and child neurologists at Johns Hopkins University to develop a method called CAMI (Computerised Assessment of Motor Imitation). This method uses 3D motion data obtained from Kinect Xbox cameras during a custom-made video game, during which the children imitated dance-like movements of a model in the video. CAMI automatically assesses how well each child imitated the movements of the model based on how important each joint was for that movement. We found that as compared to more traditional methods, in which trained researchers observe and assess imitation behaviour, CAMI method could detect autism-associated differences more precisely. Perhaps more strikingly, imitation ability as measures by CAMI alone could identify which children had an autism diagnosis with over 85% accuracy.

A paper reporting our initial findings is available here:

Tunçgenç, B., Pacheco. C., Rochowiak, et al., Mostofsky, S. H. (2020). Computerised Assessment of Motor Imitation (CAMI) as a scalable method for distinguishing children with autism. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. doi: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2020.09.001