Interpersonal synchrony in children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder: a systematic review of hyperscanning studies

Feeling connected and linked to other people is an essential need for humans, as social beings. We learn through imitation and mirroring, and we establish meaningful relationships through affiliative processes. What do these mechanisms have in common? They are based on being in synch with one another. Synchrony can be observed in behaviour and movements, in physiological changes, but also in brain coupling: when two persons interact, their neural activity tends to became similar, and the more the relationship is tight, the more the interbrain synchronization. Since synchrony is a key process for learning and for social exchanges, it is important to study how it develops and what happens when it’s disrupted. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of biobehavioural synchrony during typical development and which aspects of it are impaired or atypical in Autism Spectrum Disorder. More specifically, the systematic review’s aspiration is to present the current efforts to explore inter-brain synchronization in children and adolescents with ASD through hyperscanning techniques. As this research field is in its early stages, paradigms and experimental procedures are not yet standardized and the future direction should include samples with a broader range of age and symptom severity. Despite that, this line of research could produce interesting advances and a better understanding of the topic, and contingently help clinical practices.