Whole-body synchronization in autistic adults

Purpose: A characteristic feature of autistic individuals is deviations in nonverbal behavior during social interactions, evident in altered synchronization. In non-autistic individuals, increased synchrony adversely affects self-regulation abilities. Yet, synchronization in autistic individuals has primarily been examined in conversational contexts. Methods: In this study, 33 autistic and 33 non-autistic adults performed a dyadic movement task in which participants were asked to “have a conversation without words”, only by improvising movements. Using an inertial sensor-based motion channel system, we investigated interpersonal synchrony. Results: Our findings indicated that autistic, non-autistic, and mixed dyads exhibited consistent levels of synchronization. Although all three dyad groups exhibited a reduction in negative affect after the task, positive affect increased solely for the non-autistic participants. Furthermore, all three dyads exhibited enhanced self-regulation, albeit to a lesser extent among the non-autistic participants. Conclusion: Our results indicate that when interpersonal synchronization is assessed during spontaneous whole-body movements rather than verbal conversations, autistic persons may synchronize to the same degree as non-autistic dyads, regardless of whether they interact with another autistic or non-autistic person.