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PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Integr. Neurosci.
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnint.2024.1496165
This article is part of the Research Topic Autism: The Movement (Sensing) Perspective a Decade Later View all 24 articles

Unlocking Autism's Complexity: The Move Initiative's Path to Comprehensive Motor Function Analysis

Provisionally accepted
Ashley Priscilla Good Ashley Priscilla Good *Elizabeth Horn Elizabeth Horn *
  • 2m Foundation, Hillsborough, California, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The long-standing practice of using manualized inventories and observational assessments to diagnose and track motor function in autism overlooks critical data invisible to the naked eye. This subjective approach introduces biases and hinders the translation of research into clinical applications reliant on objective markers of brain-body connections. Meanwhile, we are experiencing a digital healthcare revolution, marked by innovations in the collection and analysis of electronic health records, personal genomes, and diverse physiological measurements. Advanced technologies, including current wearable devices, integrate active and passive data collection, providing a more comprehensive view of human health. Despite advances in sensors, wearables, algorithms, machine learning, and agentic AI, autism research remains siloed, with many tools inaccessible to affected families and care teams. There is a pressing need to merge these technological advances and expedite their translation into accessible, scalable tools and solutions to diversify scientific understanding. In response, this Perspective introduces the Move Initiative, a coalition spearheaded by the nonprofit 2m Foundation, composed of self-advocates, families, clinicians, researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors who aim to advance and refine the measurement of movement in autism. Move will make motor screenings more dynamic and longitudinal while supporting continuous assessment of targeted interventions. By fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration, Move seeks to accelerate the integration of the expanding knowledge base into widespread practice. Deep, longitudinal, multi-modal profiling of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder offers an opportunity to address gaps in current data and methods, enabling new avenues of inquiry and a more comprehensive understanding of this complex, heterogeneous condition.

    Keywords: autism, Wearable Technology, Sensor-based data, Cross-disciplinary research, Motor function, real-world data (RWD), Autism Motor Signature (AMS)

    Received: 13 Sep 2024; Accepted: 23 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Good and Horn. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Ashley Priscilla Good, 2m Foundation, Hillsborough, California, United States
    Elizabeth Horn, 2m Foundation, Hillsborough, California, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.