Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition characterised by differences in restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests or activities, and persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction. In addition to these core characteristics, autistic people show differences in sensorimotor functioning – such as gait, motor planning, motor learning, and imitation. Whilst autistic people imitate the goal of an action (e.g., picking up a cup), it has been reported for decades that autistic people show behavioural differences associated with imitating observed movement execution properties that constrain/describe the movement (e.g., speed of a movement). It’s thought that this behavioural difference is  underpinned by autism-specific sensorimotor processes involved in mapping self-other actions.

In this talk, I reported data from a series of autism studies (published and under review) from our lab that examined the imitation of biological motion kinematics. The data showed that autistic adults successfully imitated novel biological kinematics during voluntary imitation. These positive effects only occurred when participants imitated the model in a predictable blocked practice trial order (same model on a trial-by-trial basis), rather than a random practice trial where the different models were imitated across trials. This blocked practice order seems to allow the integration of observed biological motion with the executed sensorimotor information.

In addition to imitation learning, we also reported data indicating that although autistic adults acquired visuomotor sequence tasks across a period of practice-with-feedback, the executed movements were less accurate and more variable than in non-autistic adults. Examination of movement kinematics indicated the underlying sensorimotor control processes associated with movement planning and feedforward control were less effective than non-autistic learners. But importantly, over practice movement variability was reduced, suggesting intact operational sensorimotor processing.

Taken together, the data indicate that whilst there are some differences in the function of the sensorimotor system in autism that leads to deficits in imitation learning, and more variable motor execution, the practice effects show these differences can be ameliorated with training. Understanding these practice effects might therefore offer opportunities to develop motor based interventions involving physical activity and dyadic play that supports motor-social interactions.

Papers:

Low Fidelity Imitation of Atypical Biological Kinematics in Autism Spectrum Disorders Is Modulated by Self-Generated Selective Attention

Sensorimotor learning and associated visual perception are intact but unrelated in autism spectrum disorder

If you cannot access the papers, please feel free to contact Spencer to get a copy. His e-mails is spencer.hayes@ucl.ac.uk.

Dr Spencer Hayes, Department of Psychology and Human Development, UCL

The role of educators in primary school is crucial for the formation of each child. Their work, unfortunately not always carried out in easy conditions, is the basis of the cognitive and social development of future generations.

After many years, I still feel the impact of primary school on my personal growth. The memory of my Teacher, Mrs Rina Bottai, prompted me to sponsor a creative writing award in her honor.

School leavers picture. The signs says “Farewell elementary school”. Mrs Bottai retired that year after a long career in primary education. I am the one on her right.

As well as my family, Mrs Bottai was the architect of my individual development, giving me the tools and fundamental values to face life: education, self-confidence and respect for others.

With this Creative Writing award I therefore want to celebrate all primary educators, their dedication to serving children, their families and the future of our societies.

The winners were awarded on the 5th June 2019 at my old primary school, the Carlo Bini Elementary School in Livorno, Italy.

It was a great thrill for me to get back there after 47 years!

The children have done some fantastic work that I am still reading with pleasure. I have to admit, their Italian is much better than mine!

In total, there were 6 individual winners whose work was judged by a panel of teachers and parents. However, the largest part of the donation was used to buy books for the school library so that all children could benefit.

A sample of the children’s work: an essay titled “Cara Maestra… (Dear Teacher) in which they pretended to be grown-ups and told their teachers how they fulfilled their dreams after primary school. Each essay was accompanied with a drawing.

I’m already thinking about the 2019-2020 edition, where I would also like to involve an English primary school. In these sad times where the divisions between peoples always find a main title on the media, our role as educators is to encourage exchanges and cultural knowledge among the new generations.

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank the Director of the Livorno’s educational headquarter, Gianna Valente and the head of my former primary school, Katia Burlacchini who, together with their collaborators, have made this event possible. A special thanks goes to the children who participated in the competition!

Gianna Valente (on my right) and Katia Burlacchini (left) and all the teachers who made this initiative possible.

Parents and children of the Carlo Bini primary school attending the ceremony

Links:

Article about the award in UCL news

Dr Roberto Filippi’s UCL profile page and his lab page

You can also follow Dr Filippi on twitter @psyrob

Dr Alex Hodgkiss from Oxford University’s Department of Education, talked about his recent research looking at whether spatial cognition is a crucial ingredient in the recipe for success in science – at primary school and beyond. See his short video summary as well as links to his papers and other resources below.

You can read more about the research in these papers:

Spatial cognition and science achievement

Development of spatial skills and maths

Development of children’s spatial scaling skills

Alex’s University webpage, which is regularly updated with new research, is here

In this week’s seminar, Christian Bokhove, Associate Professor in Mathematics Education at Southampton University talked about his recent research on geometry learning. He took as his starting point the question of why Asian countries typically score higher in PISA-type maths comparisons than European countries. Luckily for anyone who missed it, the slides of his talk are all available on slideshare here.

As part of the project, he and his partner team in Japan created a set of geometry learning materials which you can have a look at here.

And do check out Christian’s own website to find out more about his diverse research interests, including his presentation on the Top five tips: what teachers should know about research.

You can also follow him on twitter @bokhove

In this week’s seminar, Prof Michael Thomas discussed the background to and the findings of a US initiative set up to consider the possibility of transformative changes to education.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) are jointly exploring whether transformative education solutions can be developed through an accelerated research and development (R&D) effort. The approach would bring together interdisciplinary teams from education research, human development research, learning measurement, evidence-based technology-enhanced practice, professional development, neuroscience, and other fields.

In May 2018, the two philanthropic organizations came together to seek new approaches from practitioners, researchers, and the public to a set of education challenges with enormous implications for the success of all students – and especially those who have faced early trauma or learning challenges. They put out a ‘Request for Information’ (RFI) from a wide range of research, educational, policy, non-profit and business groups to seek information for innovative strategies to help address three pressing challenges they saw:

■Writing: Preparing all high school graduates for the type of nonfiction writing demanded in college and the workplace by developing the necessary habits, skills, and strategies;

■Maths: Preparing all students to deeply understand and apply mathematical skills and knowledge and related mindsets;

■Executive Functions: Improving the ability of all students to think flexibly, wrestle with multiple ideas, and manage their thoughts and actions

The main findings in these areas were:

Writing

The RFI submissions in writing focused on three big areas:

1. Writing for the real world:These approaches provide students with opportunities to engage in writing that more closely mirror the demands of college and the workplace. These range from a partnership with a science museum to promote real-world science writing to developing a community-based peer coaching model.

2. Getting students more feedback:Many of these submissions focus on developing students’ writing skills or providing feedback to students from a diverse group of readers, including outside experts such as journalists, to complement classroom teachers.

3. Next generation writing environments:A number of submissions focus on how to put technology at the disposal of teachers to help personalize writing instruction. These range from a tool to capture qualitative data from students’ drafts to help teachers see patterns in student writing, to an online learning environment that would make visible students’ contributions to peer feedback, so that teachers would know when to coach the class or an individual learner.

Mathematics

The RFI submissions in mathematics focused on four key topics:

1. Practice and feedback: These approaches provide students with rich opportunities to engage in deliberate practice and receive actionable feedback that leads to deep mastery of foundational math knowledge and concepts. Many of them employ digital games, intelligent tutoring, and technology-based platforms to tailor learning experiences for individual students.

2. Novel instruction and experiential learning:These approaches provide students with the opportunity to discuss real-world math problems of interest to them to help develop a positive math identity. One proposal invites students to consider the real-world and ethical implications of math questions.

3. Improved measurement systems: These solutions propose to narrow the gap between assessment and instruction by providing richer indicators of student progress.

4. Empowered teachers: These submissions propose using technologies that deliver real-time information on student learning to teachers with recommendations for adjusting instruction. The intent is to support teachers to differentiate their approaches for students with a wide range of proficiency levels, as well as to enable teachers to try new pedagogical strategies

Executive Functions

The RFI submissions in this area fell into three broad buckets:

1. Measures of executive functions: There were promising approaches to developing better measures of executive functions across basic and applied research. Such measures are needed to understand which interventions best target individual students’ needs and to help teachers make informed judgments. Some submissions offer tools to help teachers understand and support students’ development of executive functions, and to provide teachers with professional development in this area.

2. Interventions to build executive functions:These submissions include ideas for scaling some existing products as well as for basic research. They range from low-cost, targeted strategies that represent the essential “active ingredients” in effective programs to develop students’ social, emotional, and cognitive skills, to efforts to build adults’ knowledge and development of executive functions, which research has found is strongly associated with children’s development of such skills.

3. Tools and techniques to support programs that develop executive functions:These ideas would support and buttress existing efforts to develop executive functions

The full findings are available in this report. More information on the background to the RFI can be found here. And their website also has useful resources for teachers and educators which are regularly updated.