Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Volume 18, Issue 4, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18041693
Keywords
autism spectrum disorder; attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; Tourette disorder; transdiagnostic approach; mental health prevention
Funding
- Fondazione Cattolica Assicurazioni
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Neurodevelopmental disorders, particularly Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), have been found to result in more severe impairments in postural control compared to Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and Tourette Syndrome (TS). Children and adolescents with ASD performed worse in various sensory conditions, while those with ADHD showed poorer performance only in specific conditions. These differences highlight the potential use of postural control as a biomarker for assessing neurodevelopmental risks.
Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) have been suggested to lie on a gradient continuum, all resulting from common brain disturbances, but with different degrees of impairment severity. This case-control study aimed to assess postural stability against such hypothesis in 104 children/adolescents aged 5-17, of whom 81 had NDDs and 23 were healthy controls. Compared to healthy controls, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) resulted in the most severely impaired neurodevelopmental condition, followed by Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and Tourette Syndrome (TS). In particular, while ASD children/adolescents performed worse than healthy controls in a number of sensory conditions across all parameters, ADHD children/adolescents performed worse than healthy controls only in the sway area for the most complex sensory conditions, when their vision and somatosensory functions were both compromised, and performance in Tourette Syndrome (TS) was roughly indistinguishable from that of healthy controls. Finally, differences were also observed between clinical groups, with ASD children/adolescents, and to a much lesser extent ADHD children/adolescents, performing worse than TS children/adolescents, especially when sensory systems were not operationally accurate. Evidence from this study indicates that poor postural control may be a useful biomarker for risk assessment during neurodevelopment, in line with predictions from the gradient hypothesis.
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