Abstract
[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of children with developmental disorders (CDD) to make estimations related to the avoidance of obstacles. [Method] Participants were 9 CDD and 9 healthy children (HC) who had been diagnosed as having attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder or Asperger's syndrome, aged 5-6. As a visual discrimination task, participants compared 2 bars at different heights from a distance of 7.0 m. Furthermore, in order to test their estimation of obstacle avoidance, bars of different heights were displayed one by one, and participants were asked to judge whether it would be possible to pass without crouching or bumping into the bars. [Results] CDD and HC performed similarly in the visual discrimination tests. However, CDD fell behind HC in their ability to use body images to estimate the possibility of pass-under movements. [Conclusion] These results suggest that the reason that CDD bump into obstacles lies in the inaccuracy of their own body images. The above results indicate that it is difficult for CDD, in comparison to HC, to make estimations of the possibility of avoiding physical contact with obstacles based on body image.
