Spatial perspective-taking abilities on ambiguous tactile stimuli: The case of children with autism spectrum disorder or developmental coordination disorder
5 affiliations
- 1Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Henri Laborit Hospital Center, Poitiers, France
- 2CNRS UMR 7295, Cognition and Learning Research Center, University of Poitiers, Poitiers, France
- 3Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France
- 4Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique, ISIR, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Paris, France
- 5Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, INCC, UMR 8002, Université Paris Cité, CNRS, Paris, France
Abstract
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.
Related
- The development of navigation and attentional abilities shapes how children explore naturalistic environments
- From cerebral palsy to developmental coordination disorder: Development of preclinical rat models corresponding to recent epidemiological changes
- Multicentre phase III randomised controlled trial to evaluate effectiveness of the Both EARS (BEARS) virtual reality training package to maximise hearing abilities in children and young people with bilateral cochlear implants: the BEARS protocol
- Mismatch Responses to Prosodic Changes in Children With Developmental Language Disorder: A Longitudinal Approach
- Age-Related Changes in E/I Balance Estimated With Hurst Exponent and Links With Developmental Skills in Preschool Children
BibTeX
@article{xavier2026spatial,
title = {{Spatial perspective-taking abilities on ambiguous tactile stimuli: The case of children with autism spectrum disorder or developmental coordination disorder}},
author = {Jean Xavier and Armand Verley and David Cohen and Hugues Pellerin and Louise P. Kirsch and Malika Auvray},
journal = {PLOS One},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0355395},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0355395},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Spatial perspective-taking abilities on ambiguous tactile stimuli: The case of children with autism spectrum disorder or developmental coordination disorder
AU - Jean Xavier
AU - Armand Verley
AU - David Cohen
AU - Hugues Pellerin
AU - Louise P. Kirsch
AU - Malika Auvray
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/21
JO - PLOS One
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0355395
UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0355395
AB - 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.
SN - 1932-6203
ER -