r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jan 30 '25

Neuroscience A low-cost tool accurately distinguishes neurotypical children from children with autism just by watching them copy the dance moves of an on-screen avatar for a minute. It can even tell autism from ADHD, conditions that commonly overlap.

https://newatlas.com/adhd-autism/autism-motion-detection-diagnosis/
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine Jan 30 '25

I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/evaluating-computerised-assessment-of-motor-imitation-cami-for-identifying-autismspecific-difficulties-not-observed-for-attentiondeficit-hyperactivity-disorder-or-neurotypical-development/C477940DE501A840F1D85F6CCF7B7D84

From the linked article:

A low-cost tool accurately distinguishes neurotypical children from children with autism just by watching them copy the dance moves of an on-screen avatar for a minute. It can even tell autism from ADHD, conditions that commonly overlap.

Early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is key to ensuring that effective interventions are put in place that, ultimately, improve a person’s quality of life. However, because ASD commonly co-exists with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), its diagnosis can be tricky and may be missed or delayed. In addition, testing a child for ASD is time-consuming and expensive.

In a new study, researchers from the Kennedy Krieger Institute, an American non-profit organization, and Nottingham Trent University in the UK developed and tested a novel means of reliably and accurately diagnosing autism in children, even when it exists alongside ADHD: a one-minute motion-detecting video game.

The two trials featured different movement sequences. CAMI scores for each trial were averaged to give a composite CAMI score for each participant between zero and one, with a higher score indicating better imitation. CAMI showed 80% accuracy in distinguishing children with ASD from neurotypical children and 70% accuracy in distinguishing children with ASD from those with ADHD. The researchers said CAMI has significant potential in clinical settings as a diagnostic tool.

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u/AfricanUmlunlgu Jan 30 '25

still does not say who imitates best

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u/Im_Balto Jan 30 '25

Regardless of co-occurring ADHD, children with ASD showed poorer CAMI performance than neurotypical children (P < 0.0001; adjusted R2 = 0.28), whereas children with ADHD and neurotypical children showed similar CAMI performance.

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u/vicsj Jan 30 '25

Yeah... And like I have ADHD with suspected ASD and I've been dancing since I was 6 yo. Does "professional" dance training affect the results as well? Could it mask the imitation and give a false negative?

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u/No-Body6215 Jan 30 '25

Another good question is about cultures that have high expectations for dancing. You could be Autistic but raised from an early age to dance well and with rhythm.

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u/jessicacummings Jan 30 '25

I did competitive ballet growing up and am also in the diagnosed with adhd and suspected autism. This confuses me a little because I see imitation as a big part of masking

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u/PsyCurious007 Jan 31 '25 edited Jan 31 '25

It was 70% accurate at detecting ASD from ADHD which to me suggests 30% of were able to imitate the moves. You may be one of the 30%

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u/jessicacummings Feb 02 '25

Ahh that makes sense! Thank you for further clarifying. I can definitely see how that makes sense. Also would be interesting to know if the ballet at such a young age helped me learn to mimic as that’s such a big part of learning dance is watching the instructors

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u/moosepuggle Jan 31 '25

I've also been dancing since I was 6 (obsessed with Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul), it feels kind of like stimming, and people frequently compliment me on my dancing. But I've realized I dance in a very autistic way: I don't want to socialize or talk, I just want to BE the music with my body.

I was finally diagnosed at 42, prob because I'm female but mostly because we were poor and couldn't even afford physical health care.

I hope they're using multiple indicators to assess autism in addition to the dancing to not miss the few who are obsessed with dancing

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u/weekendatbe Jan 30 '25

70% and 80% accuracy isn’t great. Especially when you need motion tracking equipment and software etc. There are kids who are just bad at motor stuff so giving them this dx or even sending them off for further screening when nothing else seems amiss seems not incredibly efficient. Also, 7-13 year olds.. by this age 95% of teachers/parents/early educators would have already flagged for asd evaluation if a child seems to have any impairments

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u/Lost_Pilot7984 Jan 30 '25

The reddit expert has arrived to disprove the real scientists

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u/Adderkleet Jan 30 '25

80% accurate for a 1-in-40 condition would mean about 20 correct diagnoses of the 25/1000 kids with ASD, and about 190 false-positives.

The true positive rate was 80%. R2 <0.3.
It's a cheap test, though. Might make a decent screening method.

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u/rexpup Jan 30 '25

Exactly. The motion capture system is overall a very small expense in a medical context and could be a great data point suggesting more expensive and lengthy tests.

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u/soThatIsHisName Jan 30 '25

The "real" scientists made an test for autism based on the Cupid Shuffle. Maybe this is the thread to cut each other some slack. 

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u/Lost_Pilot7984 Jan 30 '25

No, they didn't. You just don't understand the test.

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u/soThatIsHisName Jan 30 '25

I got my eyes on my phone right now buddy, you have the chance to enlighten me

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u/Lost_Pilot7984 Jan 30 '25

I'm not here to teach reading comprehension to people dumber than me. You have the same study in front of you as I do.

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u/lesath_lestrange Jan 30 '25

dumber than I*

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u/Significant-Neck-520 Jan 30 '25

Well, the reddit expert has a point here

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u/Lost_Pilot7984 Jan 30 '25

No, it has nothing to do with what they were actually doing.

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u/weekendatbe Jan 30 '25

Often times scientists can be a bit removed from the practical realities of the disorder and children and families that live with it. They study it but they don’t necessarily have children with it, don’t work with children with it, don’t actually know anyone with the disorder or know little about the realities of screening. A scientist studying the disorder isn’t some sort of all knowing being whose work cannot be questioned; it can help to have other opinions on the matter

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u/Neutronenster Jan 31 '25

I think the most important use of this test will probably be to help distinguish between ADHD, ADHD + ASD and ASD. If you’ll only be applying this test to children who have already been referred for a diagnostic evaluation, there will be much less false positives than if it’s used as a general screening tool.

As always, the results will have to be interpreted together with all of the other information that’s typically collected during the diagnostic evaluation.