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/Special-Garlic1203 Jan 30 '25

I am diagnosed with ADHD and am suddenly uncomfortably aware of the numerous times I was completely incapable of mirroring a group led physical activity with a leader at the front. 

I know I have solid spacial reasoning. Like in tests where they ask you what a shape would look like at a different angle, I can do those. 

But put a human being in front of me saying "do what I do" and my brain short circuits. 

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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '25

My wife has adhd and she is a mimic.

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u/Mama_Skip Jan 30 '25 edited Jan 30 '25

Yeah I have add and mirror people too often. I still suck at dancing tho but idk if that's because I can't mirror dance moves or because I can't perform the dance moves.

I mean at a certain extent how do we know this isn't also misdiagnosing?

Edit: they've controlled for that apparently, but I'm still unsure what category I'm fitting in. Probably ADD as that's what I'm diagnosed but I've always wondered if I wasn't autistic instead

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u/Special-Garlic1203 Jan 30 '25 edited Jan 30 '25

They used kids who have already been diagnosis using traditional methods and tested the accuracy of the system to correctly divide the kids into the proper group.