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Increased White Matter Linked to Poor Motor Skills

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What is white matter? Its one of the two main solid components of the central nervous system through which messages pass.

In typical children increased white matter volume usually predicts improved motor skills. However, research has recently found that increased white matter volume in autistic children indicates and predicts poor motor skills.


Children with autism are typically motorically clumsy and awkward, similar to how they are socially clumsy and awkward. They often experience difficulties with basic motor control and with learning more complex motor skills, such as riding a tricycle, pumping their legs on a swing or buttoning, zipping and tying shoe laces. Additionally, high-functioning children with autism often excel in academic areas, such as math, as opposed to athletic activities, such as baseball. Because measures of motor function are highly quantifiable and reproducible, they are much easier to study than measures of social and communication behavior. Motor signs can serve as markers for deficits in parallel brain systems important for control of socialization and communication.

Researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, MD used anatomic magnetic imaging (aMRI) to study 76 children and the Physical and Neurologic Examination of Subtle Signs (PANESS).

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