BACKGROUND: The present study sought to examine the specificity, developmental correlates, nature and pervasiveness of imitation deficits very early in the development of @entity2438 . METHODS: Subjects were 24 @entity1 with @entity2438 (mean age 34 months), 18 @entity1 with @entity2100 , 20 @entity1 with other @entity245 , and 15 typically-developing @entity1 . Tasks included manual, oral-facial, and object oriented imitations, developmental measures, joint attention ability, and motor abilities. RESULTS: @entity1 with @entity2438 were found to be significantly more impaired in overall imitation abilities, oral-facial imitation, and imitations of actions on objects than @entity1 in all of the other groups. Imitation skills of young @entity1 with @entity2100 were strongly influenced by the absence or presence of symptoms of @entity2438 . For @entity1 with @entity2438 , imitation skills were strongly correlated with @entity2438 and joint attention, even when controlling for developmental level. For comparison groups, imitation was related to other developmental abilities including play, language, and @entity227 . Neither motor functioning nor social responsivity accounted for a significant amount of variance in imitation scores, when controlling for overall developmental level, which accounted for much of the variation in imitation ability. CONCLUSIONS: Simple imitation skills were differentially impaired in young @entity1 with @entity2438 , and lack of social cooperation did not account for their poor performance. In @entity2438 , imitation skills clustered with dyadic and triadic social interactions and overall developmental level, but were not related to play or language development. For comparison @entity1 , all these areas were inter-related. Hypotheses about a specific @entity51 underlying the imitation performance in @entity2438 were not supported.

Imitation performance in toddlers with @entity2438 and those with other XXXX .

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['children', 'Children'] @entity227 :: ('MESH:D014786', 'Disease') :: ['visual spatial skills'] @entity2438 :: ('MESH:D001321', 'Disease') :: ['autistic symptoms', 'autism'] @entity245 :: ('MESH:D002658', 'Disease') :: ['developmental disorders'] @entity51 :: ('MESH:D009461', 'Disease') :: ['dyspraxic deficit'] @entity2100 :: ('MESH:D005600', 'Disease') :: ['fragile X syndrome']
@entity245 :: (MESH:D002658,Disease) :: ['developmental disorders']
