Autism, Movement, Time and Thought E-Motion Mis-Sight and other Temporo-Spatial Processing Disorders in Autism

In this chapter we propose a new approach of autism called E-Motion mis-sight and other temporospatial processing disorders. According to our view, subjects with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) present more or less disabilities, delays and deviances, to perceive and integrate environmental world's sensory events online and to produce real-time sensorymotor coupling and adequate verbal and nonverbal outputs, from the beginning of their life. In other words, the environmental world is going and changing too fast for persons with ASD.In the first paragraph, we present some biographical self-reports, clinical considerations and neuropsychological arguments, which open windows on the peculiar visual and visuo-motor world of autistic persons. In the second paragraph, we expose the available experimental results in favour of physical and biological motion integration disorders in autistic population, and we expose a first synthesis of our approach. In the third paragraph, we review some results demonstrating other temporo-spatial processing disorders in ASD, and suggest some possible underlying neurobiological mechanisms of our E-Motion mis-sight and other temporospatial processing disorders hypothesis of autism, based on putative multi-system temporal dissynchronization and functional disconnectivity. We think that this approach, which is compatible with the major contemporary theories of ASD, may have new implications for the comprehension and new applications for the rehabilitation of these disorders. In the last paragraph, we propose some psychological and philosophical perspectives of our approach concerning with the integration of movement and time in thought, and the mind-brain relationships in autism in particular, and in human being in general