REVIEW ARTICLE published: 19 April 2013 INTEGRATIVE NEUROSCIENCE doi: 10.3389/fnint.2013.00027 Rhythm and timing in autism: learning to dance Pat Amos* Training and Private Consultation, Ardmore, PA, USA Edited by: In recent years, a significant body of research has focused on challenges to neural Anne M. Donnellan, University of connectivity as a key to understanding autism. In contrast to attempts to identify a Wisconsin-Madison, University of single static, primarily brain-based deficit, children and adults diagnosed with autism are San Diego, USA increasingly perceived as out of sync with their internal and external environments in Reviewed by: Elizabeth B. Torres, Rutgers dynamic ways that must also involve operations of the peripheral nervous systems. The University, USA noisiness that seems to occur in both directions of neural flow may help explain challenges Trevor McDonald, Education to movement and sensing, and ultimately to entrainment with circadian rhythms and social Associates Inc., USA interactions across the autism spectrum, profound differences in the rhythm and timing of *Correspondence: movement have been tracked to infancy. Difficulties with self-synchrony inhibit praxis, and Pat Amos, 635 Ardmore Avenue, Ardmore, PA 19003-1831, USA. can disrupt the “dance of relationship” through which caregiver and child build meaning. e-mail:
[email protected] Different sensory aspects of a situation may fail to match up; ultimately, intentions and actions themselves may be uncoupled. This uncoupling may help explain the expressions of alienation from the actions of one’s body which recur in the autobiographical autism literature. Multi-modal/cross-modal coordination of different types of sensory information into coherent events may be difficult to achieve because amodal properties (e.g., rhythm and tempo) that help unite perceptions are unreliable.