Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

When individuals engage in social interactions, they coordinate their nonverbal movements. Atypical movement coordi-nation may contribute to social difficulties in autism. Further, distinct gender differences have been found in autism: malesshow reduced socio-communicative behaviours relative to females. Here, we explored whether interpersonal movementcoordination differs between males and females with autism, compared to neurotypical (NT) adults. Thirteen adults withautism participated. Twenty-six NT controls are currently being tested. Participants complete a semi-structured interviewwhile being video-recorded. Coordination between participant and examiner is measured using a video-based movementanalysis. Females with autism demonstrated significantly greater movement coordination with their conversational partner,within a smaller range, than males. Given past findings, we expect that coordination differences between autistic and NTmales will be greater than between autistic and NT females. These preliminary results suggest that investigating movementcoordination during interaction may provide a tool for better understanding gender differences in ASD.