The analysis of movement reveals a contrast between autism and schizophrenia in infancy

O. Teitelbaum, P. Teitelbaum and A. Prince

Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

EWMN (Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation) is a geometrical method for analyzing any form of movement. As such it has been applied in various .elds including zoology, physical therapy, dance, and choreography. Over the past several years we have applied it to the study of Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome in infancy. More recently we are applying it to the study of Schizophrenia in infancy.

The age at which Autism is currently diagnosed by conventional methods is around 2 to 3 years of age at the earliest. Asperger’s Syndrome is more difficult to diagnose early because such children often have language and a very high IQ. The earliest that Asperger’s Syndrome is diagnosed is about 5 to 6 years of age.

Our method using EWMN, has allowed us to detect abnormalities in movement for both Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome, very early in infancy at about 6 to 8 months of age. So far, in one Schizophrenic infant–to-be, we have found that unlike Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome, there are no aberrations in movement in infancy in Schizophrenia. This is in contrast to a recently published study of 11-13 year old schizophrenic-to- be children who do show movement disturbances. Therefore, in schizophrenia, such movement disturbances appear later than they do in Autism or Asperger’s Syndrome.

Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2005 , 5^th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 30 August - 2 September 2005, Wageningen, The Netherlands.

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