An Imitation Deficit
October 10, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
“When he wants juice, hold the cup in front of him and say ‘joo’ and he will try to say something like that and keep on doing it, and then when he can say ‘joo’ and he wants the juice, hold the cup and say, ‘juice’ and he will try to say it and then he will say it closer and closer.”
That’s what a pediatrician in the Saint Paul Children’s Hospital told me when almost 10 years ago. Charlie was a toddler and not yet talking; the pediatrician nodded about my concerns but told me to give the “joo/juice” thing a try and one day, Charlie would talk.
In the short run, it seemed like the doctor could not have been more wrong. Juice, rice, crackers, cookies, his favorite stacking cups: I said every word carefully and clearly, and kindly, and happily smiling, and Charlie said nothing.
This was in 1998, some months before Charlie was diagnosed with autism. When he started an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) program in September of 1999, imitation was one of the first skills that he was taught and little did I know, but imitation would be a long-running foundation for his learning.
A study by researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute suggests that autistic children have “impaired imitation skills” because they spend less time looking at the faces of people who are modeling actions or skills. From today’s Health News Digest:
The study was conducted using high-technology eye-tracking headgear and software that measures with precision the point at which a child is looking when learning a task. Researchers used an actor to demonstrate a task on a computer screen.
“We found that the children with autism focused on the demonstrator’s action and looked at the demonstrator’s face much less often than did typically developing children,” said Giacomo Vivanti, a postdoctoral researcher at the M.I.N.D. Institute and the study’s lead author. “The typically developing children may be looking at the demonstrator’s face to check for information on what to do or how to respond appropriately, information that the children with autism are less inclined to seek. This is an important finding, because children with autism have difficulty learning from others. This might be one key to why that is so,” Vivanti said.
……
In the current study, which was published online in June and will appear in print in November in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 18 children aged 8 to 15 with high-functioning autism were carefully matched with a group of 13 typically developing children. While wearing special eye-tracking headgear, the children were shown video clips that ranged from seven to 19 seconds in length. After viewing each clip, the children performed the demonstrated action. The results confirm previous research that shows that children with autism have difficulty imitating tasks when compared to normally developing children. It also showed that children with autism paid just as much attention to the action being performed as the other children in the study, ruling out previous hypotheses about poor attention to the task.
M.I.N.D. Institute researcher and senior study author Sally J. Rogers speaks of an “imitation deficit” and also notes that these findings suggest that “imitation is not just about repeating an action, but understanding the reason for the action.”
“Do this” and “like me” and “Copy me” or “say this” I say now to Charlie and he looks up, looks in my direction, and tries to do what I’m doing, though in his own way—”perfect copies” aren’t required.
Just curious how imitation related to PDD-NOS. My daughter DOES imitate a lot. I’ve written that up to the difference between full autism and pdd-nos. Anyway know if that is the case?
My son imitates a lot. He was diagnosed with classic autism at 17 months and is now 7.5 years old. He also has a lot of pretend play, he just doesn’t know how to do “shared pretend play” yet. He also has a big imagination, as he will tell you himself. He recently has made up an older brother as a companion, and is constantly coming up with new ideas.
Yet again, I had someone with years of experience working with autistics tell me how “atypically autistic” he is. Huh? He’s not a “typical” kid, but not a “typical autistic”? I’m still trying to wrap my brain around that one! He’s just Alex to me!
I’d really like some expert opinion here, but there doesn;t seem to be any.
I am wary, very wary of blanket approaches that seem to say, there’s a defricit in imitation and therefore let’s teach them how to learn via imitation. Is it just me, or can anybody else see the glaring holes in this scenario:
1. If you cannot learn via imitation, surely it’s better to find some other way to do it rahter than insist that you learn via a demonstrated deficient mode. I myself cannot learn via any ‘like this, do that format’. Why on eath would I insist that my offspring, with the same problem, do the same. This is surely cognitive dissonance.
2. Why is it assumed that ‘imitation’ applies to learning because the person can demonstrate she or he can do it. I have ‘imitated’ people probably to excess at earlier ages, their accent, their mannerisms, their walk, their small talk style. It had nothing whatsoever to do with learning. For me, it was always a matter of knowing what was the required end result and figuring out a way to get there.
If you have it, Kristina, I would like to see the research from Sally Rogers that this is a) meaningful for autistics and b) successful.
I’d also like to get Joseph’s take on this.
Oh and many thanks Kristina for the sterling work you’ve been doing all week on this book review. I always enjoy what you write, with just the odd point of a parting of the ways:)
Tom doesn’t gauge moods or check for reactions, but he does love copying action rhymes and still has a lot of echolalia. We use his love of music and singing by doing lots of rhymes and actions to help with his learning. He tends to over imitate as well, if such a thing is possible, thinking that every sound and action needs to be copied. When the Ed Psych came to assess him last year, the EP had a cough whilst talking and Tom was repeating back what the EP was saying and was coughing in the same places. The teacher had to explain that Tom didn’t have a cough himself, he just thought that the cough was part of the sentence.
Another “autistic” as non-person “deficit” post, bravo Kristina! Perhaps you should consult with Charlie before you post a bunch of bullshit as indicative of an entire group of people (i.e. autistics). What you wrote has nothing to do with my “robustly autistic” autistic “disordered” son. Perhaps you should spend less time on your blog and more time with Charlie? I’m about tired of reading your bullshit.
@alyric, thanks — agreeing to disagree is necessary and I wasn’t surprised to see Rogers use the word “deficit.” Imitation has been a good way to teach Charlie in particular; as noted, no “perfect copy” is necessary. I look forward to Joseph’s take on this too.
@CS, thanks for reading.
@Fielding Hurst, I don’t know about imitation, PDD-NOS and “full autism”—looking for references.
Hello friends –
Well, a lack of imitation describes with great clarity one of my sons behavior patterns; and I would describe it as a deficit in his case. He did perform some imitation early in his life, but it went away around 15 – 18 month timeframe.
It isn’t that putting your hands in the air, touching your nose, waving goodbye, jumping up and down or the rest are critical living skills, but what seems to drive this lack of imitation (at least in his case), is a seeming genuine lack of curiosity in what other people do, say, or anything else.
Without this most basic skill, almost any type of learning based on what others are trying to show, or tell you, is very difficult.
- pD
Don’t patronize me. Spend more time with Charlie and less time on your stupid blog.
I’m not sure what looking at a person’s eyes has to do with imitation. My daughter does not imitate motions. I had read in an article that one difference between those who are low-functioning differ from those with “simple” delayed mental development are games such as the “Wheels on the Bus.” The autistic child will move the hands of the other player according to what is being sung, the non-autistic child will either play “properly” or not at all.
The above fits my daughter perfectly. She has never imitated gross motor action. This was true even before her regression.
I would think echolalia, which is fairly common among non-conversant autistics, is a form of imitation. My daughter is echoing more things these days. Not long passages, but just a word here and there. Perhaps it will be a stepping stone to speech.
The other day on TeachTown they asked her to “match the picture.” She not only pointed to the right one, but pronounced it a book.
@mayfly, great to hear!
Charlie also echoes things that he has heard a few days ago, or even months before—-not always word, but songs and melodies. He started echoing more after talking (mostly 1-2 word utterances) for a couple of years and what’s especially noticeable is that, on his own, he imitates longer and longer phrases.
It is nice to see that Charlie is making progress.
I am having a problem with “imitation is not just about repeating an action, but understanding the reason for the action.”
While the mindless drone of a researcher may think this, and be correct from their point of view, the point of imitation for understanding the reason seems to go out the window when kids play cops and robbers (or choose your own secnario.) Here they are imitating TV, movies, whatever, for fun, to fill time, to play, not to understand much more than cops are good guys and robbers are bad guys.
I am glad that you pointed out how important imitation was for Charlie. I also imitate a lot of things, like civil behavior. Here’s hoping that people can read and understand beyond the first glance!
Patrick,
If I act civil, can I have an M&M?
Imitation is helpful for the very young. We don’t use it as much when we get older. Although most of us learned quite a bit by rote. Which is not that removed from imitation.
Why must an autistic child be perfect to be human? My child has serious difficulties due to her autism. Does that make her less of a human being? Not in my mind.
Who would be against finding alternate means of learning for a child, but there is also nothing wrong with trying to develop an area where the child is weak.
There is however the old saw about teaching a pig to sing. “It cannot be done and it annoys the pig.”
In other words there may be areas where your efforts will gain you nothing and frustrate your child. In that case pursuing it makes little sense. Perhaps you can try again later.
Before the mail comes in, the analogy with the pig does not mean I think autistic children are pigs.
CS,
I saw the protest a few weeks ago about the post title that was literally recycled from the headline of the story. At first glance it was inflamatory, but those are the headlines the media uses, and no I am not here to argue the ethic of inflamatory headlines.
I read this posting and had thought twice before coming back to comment, because from where I sit, Kristina was at least pointing out variation from the imitation expectations of both her pediatrician, and S Rogers.
I don’t know how well delivery of the message would go if it all had to be filtered to meet each of the potential recipients mind set. Please don’t shoot the messenger. Remember it’s the message that counts. I could use J Mac words to describe what I think about a lot of peoples’ opinions.
There have been in the last 2 years at least 3 hosts/posters demanding things be their way on the set of blogs I read. They weren’t entirely successful. Negotation usually fairs better with honey or vinegar?
WOW, CS. Why so hostile?
Imitation has been great for my daughter. She imitates her cousin who is a couple of years older with everything. It does related to learning. This is how my daughter learned to swim and other things that she does now on her own.
I don’t think echolalia is the same. For us, that’s more like her being stuck on something and not able or willing to move on. Echoing drives me bonkers sometimes and for us seems to come and go. At times, she won’t do it for long stretches then other times will say something over and over for a couple of DAYS!
@Mayfly and Kristina — wonderful to hear that both your kids are doing more imitating and using that to learn. Jeremy’s acquisition of speech, from age 3.5 to about 5.5, was via what I used to call “recombinant echolalia” — he’d repeat something he’d heard and remembered, but modify it to suit the circumstances. (Wow, that was 12-14 years ago… how time flies.)
@Harold — I hope Conor’s doing well too.
@CS — Please lay off. You’re way overboard. You’re only doing damage to the weight others will give more important things *you* have to say, on down the road.
Storkdok…your son sounds so much like mine, in regards to his imitation play! I’ve googled your blog! I love reading about other experiences.
Kristina…keep up the excellent work. This blog has gotten me through many a cloudy day.
Patrick and Phil: Your both right. For whatever reason, this blog causes me to have a meltdown every time I read it. I’ve tried to restrain my viewing but like the bugs attracted to my zapper outside, I find myself somehow involuntarily drawn in to read it just so I can have a meltdown. Not sure why I keep coming back to say something ugly because in the end its only destructive to me and my well being. I just don’t like the author and her views as I think this blog is a sort of condescending top down view of autism.
@CS, thank you for noting that. I’m not autistic and I write as a mother who’s different in various ways of her own.
@Harold L Doherty, very best wishes to Conor and your family.
To all, thank you…..what can I say…..being Charlie’s mother has been humbling and made me tremendously aware of my own limitations. And tremendously glad to know that you’re all out there.
I just had a Jane Meyerding moment, looking at the title of this blog article again.
Jane is one of my favorite writers in the autistic community, both for her online essays and “snippets”, and for her contributions to Jean Kearns Miller’s anthology Women From Another Planet? and Dinah Murray’s anthology Coming Out Asperger.
Every so often Jane writes that she encounters a phrase or a sentence that she parses differently than the usual expected way, sometimes to humorous effect.
So when I reread the title, I parsed it with “deficit” as the noun: an imitation deficit, a faux impairment
.
“I’m not sure what looking at a person’s eyes has to do with imitation. My daughter does not imitate motions. I had read in an article that one difference between those who are low-functioning differ from those with “simple” delayed mental development are games such as the “Wheels on the Bus.” The autistic child will move the hands of the other player according to what is being sung, the non-autistic child will either play “properly” or not at all.”
Tom still likes to move other people’s hands around to the songs, but he can copy the actions on his own as well now.
He also likes to cover my hands over my eyes and then pull them away to play peekaboo.
@Phil Schwarz, very “faux” indeed—thanks for the link to Meyerding’s piece. Having noted various behaviors of other pre-adolescent boys, I feel quite lucky that my own son shows no inclination to imitate their “typical behavior.”
Some of the advice doctors gave me when M was a toddler was beyond terrible. They loved to dish out this advice but would never help us reach a diagnosis and belittled me every step of the way. Especially in regards to her CVS. Amazingly enough.
Back then I had no idea that M was parroting me. Looking back at our videos I realize we were so concerned with her behavioral challenges and insomnia and vomiting that we were not even paying attention to her lack of speech.
Charlie and M have both come a long way since those early years. You and me are good moms. No doubt about it. Our kids are awesome.
“It also showed that children with autism paid just as much attention to the action being performed as the other children in the study, ruling out previous hypotheses about poor attention to the task.”
hmmmm… not the case with my daugther. I place equal blame on poor imitiation skills and poor attentin to task.
Then again; no one with Autism is alike.
In the past one reason I thought my son was not paying attention was because he tends to look out of the corners of his eyes. I’ve since learned that he is paying attention when he does this — is trying to pay attention. Have you found any methods effective for helping your daughter to better focus?
I truly appreciate your reply. (I found your blog a few weeks ago and, to me, it’s the most well-wriiten, informative Autism blog I’ve ever encountered. I’m grateful you’re using your talent as a voice for the other side of Autism.)
With my daughter, her attention is not always connected to eye contact. She’s very active. She darts. She paces. Redirecting her when she gets in “this mode” is incredibly difficult.
The only way I can keep her attention or try to engage her — fully — is to have an incredibly powerful reinforcer behind the activity.
And her lack of focus/attention occurs in general/natural settings, too.
I’ve often worried that she might also suffer from ADD/ADHD since the two disorders seem to have so much in common. But, I’m too reluctant to try drugs.
For us it all centers around anything Spongebob, Lego Starwars/Indiana Jones or anything medieval in nature…if he knows that one of these two things, will be the end result of him attending to something…he makes a noticeable effort at paying attention. More and more, he looks directly at a person, when they are speaking to him. He has never really done the looking out of the corner of his eyes – he just straight up would look away from you or down…with frequent glances right at the source of what should be his focus. I notice now, that he does this now more, when he is “getting in trouble.” LOL. He passionately loves certain things…and while I hate to use them in a stick and carrot fashion…he will willingly work toward these “privilieges.” At one point…I had printed out the picture of the game Lego Star Wars and gave it to his teachers. If he had a good day at school (the definition of that was fairly broad)…they would put it in his folder to come home. This meant, he got to play that game with Dad on the computer. If it wasn’t in his folder…he did not. Now my son loves nothing more, than a good session of vegging out with Daddy on the computer…and HATED when he did not have that laminated picture in his folder! Today, we still employ a modified form of this encouragement. He also will work very hard for his little sister…he takes his job as a big brother seriously and tries esp. hard to be a role model for her. Sometimes, I worry…that she may pass him on many things…but they are so close, I know that he will always be her hero. These two are peas in a pod…he has been smitten with his little sister since day one…likewise for her. I think in many ways, she has benefited him by her persistence in drawing out the abilities we know are inside of him. She has been as beneficial as any teacher, if not more so.
I used to ask doctors if there was such a thing as “extreme” imitation because that’s much of what it seemed my daughter did – imitating without purpose or understanding. She would copy many of the actions or words she observed (and she was very observant even if she didn’t make eye contact, play with me/toys, want to be held, etc), without being able to generalize the action or thought behind the words. It seemed like she knew she needed to achieve an end result and could see how to get there, but not all the thoughts or reasons in between and so when she had to repeat the action or words later, independently, she wasn’t able to.
She’s great at imitation (when she’s motivated), it’s when she has to act independently where she struggles. I’ve never fully understood this…