Vertical Ground Reaction Force Gait Patterns During Walking in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Authors

1 Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

2 Department of Electrical Engineering, Politeknik Sultan Idris Shah, Sungai Lang, Sungai Air Tawar, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract

The characteristics of vertical ground reaction force (VGRF) gait patterns in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to identify VGRF gait features that discriminate between children with ASD and the peer control group. The VGRF data were obtained from 30 children with ASD and 30 normal healthy children aged 4 to 12 years. A three-dimensional motion analysis system with eight cameras and two force plates were used to collect VGRF data while subjects performed self-selected speed of barefoot walking. Parameterization techniques were applied to VGRF waveforms to extract the VGRF gait features. Mean significant differences between the two groups were tested using independent samples t-test and Mann-Whitney U test. Significant group differences were found for four VGRF gait features. Results indicated that children with ASD exhibited a significant reduction of the second peak of VGRF, earlier relative time to the occurrence of the second peak of VGRF, lower push-off rate, and higher peak ratio of the two VGRF peaks during normal speed of walking. These prominent differences showed that children with ASD had difficulties in supporting their body weight during terminal stance phase and these conditions affect the gait instability. The findings of this study develop further understanding of VGRF gait patterns that significantly differentiate between children with ASD and the peer control groups.

Keywords


1.     Perry, J. and Davids, J.R., "Gait analysis: Normal and pathological function", Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics,  Vol. 12, No. 6, (1992), 815-822.
2.     Safartoobi, M., Dardel, M., Ghasemi, M. and MOHAMMADI, D.H., "Stabilization and walking control for a simple passive walker using computed torque method",  International Journal of Engineering, Transactions B: Applications, Vol. 27, No. 11, (2014), 1777-1786.
3.     Whittle, M.W., Gait analysis, in The soft tissues. 1993, Elsevier.187-199.
4.     Davis, R.B., "Clinical gait analysis", IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine,  Vol. 7, No. 3, (1988), 35-40.
5.     Chester, V.L., Biden, E.N. and Tingley, M., "Gait analysis", Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology,  Vol. 39, No. 1, (2005), 64-74.
6.     van der Krogt, M.M., Sloot, L.H., Buizer, A.I. and Harlaar, J., "Kinetic comparison of walking on a treadmill versus over ground in children with cerebral palsy", Journal of Biomechanics,  Vol. 48, No. 13, (2015), 3586-3592.
7.     Williams, S., Gibbs, S., Meadows, C. and Abboud, R., "Classification of the reduced vertical component of the ground reaction force in late stance in cerebral palsy gait", Gait & Posture,  Vol. 34, No. 3, (2011), 370-373.
8.     Manap, H.H. and Tahir, N.M., "Detection of parkinson gait pattern based on vertical ground reaction force", in Control System, Computing and Engineering (ICCSCE), 2013 IEEE International Conference on, IEEE., (2013), 631-636.
9.     Muniz, A. and Nadal, J., "Application of principal component analysis in vertical ground reaction force to discriminate normal and abnormal gait", Gait & Posture,  Vol. 29, No. 1, (2009), 31-35.
10.   McCrory, J.L., White, S.C. and Lifeso, R.M., "Vertical ground reaction forces: Objective measures of gait following hip arthroplasty", Gait & Posture,  Vol. 14, No. 2, (2001), 104-109.
11.   McCrory, J.L., Chambers, A.J., Daftary, A. and Redfern, M.S., "Ground reaction forces during gait in pregnant fallers and non-fallers", Gait & Posture,  Vol. 34, No. 4, (2011), 524-528.
12.   Hollman, J.H., Brey, R.H., Bang, T.J. and Kaufman, K.R., "Does walking in a virtual environment induce unstable gait?: An examination of vertical ground reaction forces", Gait & Posture,  Vol. 26, No. 2, (2007), 289-294.
13.   Miripour, F.B., Bagheri, A. and Khoskbijari, A., "Receding horizon based control of disturbed upright balance with consideration of foot tilting (research note)",  International Journal of Engineering, Transactions A: Basics, Vol. 26, No. 10, (2013), 1243-1254.
14.   Weiss, M.J., Moran, M.F., Parker, M.E. and Foley, J.T., "Gait analysis of teenagers and young adults diagnosed with autism and severe verbal communication disorders", Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience,  Vol. 7, No. 10, (2013), 33-40.
15.   Calhoun, M., Longworth, M. and Chester, V.L., "Gait patterns in children with autism", Clinical Biomechanics,  Vol. 26, No. 2, (2011), 200-206.
16.   Dufek, J.S., Eggleston, J.D., Harry, J.R. and Hickman, R.A., "A comparative evaluation of gait between children with autism and typically developing matched controls", Medical Sciences,  Vol. 5, No. 1, (2017), 1-11.
17.   Eggleston, J.D., Harry, J.R., Hickman, R.A. and Dufek, J.S., "Analysis of gait symmetry during over-ground walking in children with autism spectrum disorder", Gait & Posture,  Vol. 55, (2017), 162-166.
18.   Ambrosia, D., Courchesne, E. and Kaufman, K., "Motion analysis of patients with infantile austism", Gait & Posture,  Vol. 7, No. 2, (1998), 188-205.
19.   Hasan, C.Z.C., Jailani, R., Tahir, N.M. and Ilias, S., "The analysis of three-dimensional ground reaction forces during gait in children with autism spectrum disorders", Research in Developmental Disabilities,  Vol. 66, No., (2017), 55-63.
20.   Kumar, S. and Sahoo, G., "A random forest classifier based on genetic algorithm for cardiovascular diseases diagnosis (research note)", International Journal of Engineering, Transactions B: Applications,  Vol. 30, No. 11, (2017), 1723-1729.
21.   Hasan, C.Z.C., Jailani, R., Tahir, N.M. and Sahak, R., "Autism spectrum disorders gait identification using ground reaction forces", TELKOMNIKA (Telecommunication Computing Electronics and Control),  Vol. 15, No. 2, (2017), 903-911.
22.   Kadaba, M.P., Ramakrishnan, H. and Wootten, M., "Measurement of lower extremity kinematics during level walking", Journal of Orthopaedic Research,  Vol. 8, No. 3, (1990), 383-392.
23.   Davis III, R.B., Ounpuu, S., Tyburski, D. and Gage, J.R., "A gait analysis data collection and reduction technique", Human Movement Science,  Vol. 10, No. 5, (1991), 575-587.
 
 
 
 
 
 
24.   Thompson, M., Lee, S., Seegmiller, J. and McGowan, C., "Kinematic and kinetic comparison of barefoot and shod running in mid/forefoot and rearfoot strike runners", Gait & Posture,  Vol. 41, No. 4, (2015), 957-959.
25.   Woltring, H.J., "A fortran package for generalized, cross-validatory spline smoothing and differentiation", Advances in Engineering Software (1978),  Vol. 8, No. 2, (1986), 104-113.
26.   Massaad, A., Assi, A., Skalli, W. and Ghanem, I., "Repeatability and validation of gait deviation index in children: Typically developing and cerebral palsy", Gait & Posture,  Vol. 39, No. 1, (2014), 354-358.
27.   Dixon, P., Bowtell, M. and Stebbins, J., "The use of regression and normalisation for the comparison of spatio-temporal gait data in children", Gait & Posture,  Vol. 40, No. 4, (2014), 521-525.
28.   Chester, V.L. and Calhoun, M., "Gait symmetry in children with autism", Autism Research and Treatment,  Vol. 2012, (2012), 1-5.
29.   Baker, R., "Gait analysis methods in rehabilitation", Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation,  Vol. 3, No. 1, (2006), 1-10.
30.   Stansfield, B., Hillman, S., Hazlewood, M., Lawson, A., Mann, A., Loudon, I. and Robb, J., "Normalisation of gait data in children", Gait & posture,  Vol. 17, No. 1, (2003), 81-87.
31.   White, R., Agouris, I., Selbie, R. and Kirkpatrick, M., "The variability of force platform data in normal and cerebral palsy gait", Clinical Biomechanics,  Vol. 14, No. 3, (1999), 185-192.
32.   Molloy, M., Salazar-Torres, J., Kerr, C., McDowell, B.C. and Cosgrove, A.P., "The effects of industry standard averaging and filtering techniques in kinematic gait analysis", Gait & Posture,  Vol. 28, No. 4, (2008), 559-562.
33.   Su, B., Song, R., Guo, L. and Yen, C., "Characterizing gait asymmetry via frequency sub-band components of the ground reaction force", Biomedical Signal Processing and Control,  Vol. 18, No., (2015), 56-60.
34.   Greer, N.L., Hamill, J. and Campbell, K.R., "Dynamics of children's gait", Human Movement Science,  Vol. 8, No. 5, (1989), 465-480.
35.   Alaqtash, M., Sarkodie-Gyan, T., Yu, H., Fuentes, O., Brower, R. and Abdelgawad, A., "Automatic classification of pathological gait patterns using ground reaction forces and machine learning algorithms", in Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC, 2011 Annual International Conference of the IEEE, (2011), 453-457.
36.   Allison, K., Wrigley, T.V., Vicenzino, B., Bennell, K.L., Grimaldi, A. and Hodges, P.W., "Kinematics and kinetics during walking in individuals with gluteal tendinopathy", Clinical Biomechanics,  Vol. 32, (2016), 56-63.
37.   Mayers, A., "Introduction to statistics and spss in psychology, Pearson Higher Ed,  (2013).
38.   Pallant, J., "Spss survival manual, McGraw-Hill Education (UK),  (2013).
39.   Field, A., "Discovering statistics using spss, Sage publications,  (2009).