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. 2010;20 Suppl 2(Suppl 2):S490-7.
doi: 10.2188/jea.je20090178. Epub 2010 Feb 23.

Behavioral characteristics of children with high functioning pervasive developmental disorders during a game

Hideo Kawaguchi  1 , Bonko Murakami, Masatoshi Kawai
Affiliations

Behavioral characteristics of children with high functioning pervasive developmental disorders during a game

Hideo Kawaguchi et al. J Epidemiol. 2010.

Abstract

Background: To evaluate children's sociability through their behavior, we compared the motion features of children with high functioning pervasive developmental disorders (HFPDD) and typical development (TD) during a game. We selected 'Jenga' as the game because this is an interactive game played by two people.

Methods: We observed the behavior of 7 children with HFPDD and 10 children with TD. An optical motion capture system was used to follow the movement of 3-dimensional position markers attached to caps worn by the players.

Results: The range of head motion of the children with HFPDD was narrower than that of the control group, especially in the X-axis direction (perpendicular to the line connecting the two players). In each game, we calculated the range of motion in the X-axis of each child and divided that figure by the matched adult player's range. The average ratios of children with HFPDD and TD were 0.64 and 0.89 (number of games are 61 and 18), and the difference of these two ratios is significant (P < 0.001).

Conclusions: This ratio has sensitivity to identify HFPDD children and could be useful in their child care.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Schema of Jenga. Jenga is a balancing game where players remove wooden blocks form a tower and place them on top of the tower. (Jenga: “to build” in Swahili)
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Arrangement of the observation room
Figure 3.
Figure 3.. Typical interactive motions of players during Jenga. This is a simulated experiment conducted with adults.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.. Tracking head motion
Figure 5.
Figure 5.. Ratio of Head Motion Range in the X-axis Direction. Each of the seven HFPDD children carried out five experiments in total with each child undertaking one experiment per month. Matches of Jenga played were 61 in case of HFPDD children. While, all the ten TD children undertook one experiment each, then matches of Jenga played were 18.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.. ΔX-ratio in cases of participant’s and examiner’s turns
Figure 7.
Figure 7.. Histograms of time-occurrence rates in major three categories. Major three categories: Examiner’s fingers, tower/blocks, examiner’s eyes.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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