Spatial perspective-taking abilities on ambiguous tactile stimuli: The case of children with autism spectrum disorder or developmental coordination disorder

Spatial perspective-taking corresponds to the ability to adopt someone else’s point of view. Abnormalities in visual perspective-taking have been reported in neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), such as Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental coordination disorder (DCD), which are highly comorbid conditions. This study explored the developmental aspects of perspective-taking in the tactile modality in typically developing children and children with NDD. A total of 107 children, aged between 6 and 17 years, completed the study: 74 were typically developing (TD) and 33 had a neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) (24 had ASD and 9 had DCD). We used a graphesthesia task to investigate the perspectives adopted by children when interpreting ambiguous tactile symbols (b, d, p and q) presented on their stomach. The children’s responses to the stimuli allowed us to infer the perspective they had adopted to interpret them: egocentric (head- or trunk-centred) or decentred. The spontaneous perspective was predominantly egocentric (82% and 77% for TD and NDD groups, respectively). There were no significant differences between the groups. During S2 and S3, in which we imposed a perspective on participants, accuracy increased with age for both groups. Additionally, the NDD group demonstrated significantly lower accuracy than the TD group in session 2. Response times (RT) were similar, except for the imposed decentered perspective. RT was significantly higher in the NDD group than for the TD group. From a developmental perspective, our findings highlight the embodied strategy involved in perspective-taking in the tactile modality, as well as its specificities in children with NDD. We discuss our results in relation to possible impairments in developmental dimensions, including inhibitory control and multisensory integration amongst those with ASD.