Autism: a review explores links between sensations, movement and body perception

Representing the self through the body and action

The review focuses on the “active self,” meaning the sense of self built through goal-directed actions and interactions with the environment. It examines multisensory integration, which combines information from several senses, and proprioception, which provides information about the body's position.

The authors synthesized 37 empirical studies published between 2010 and August 2025. Their analysis is organized around three themes: multisensory integration, the distinction between self and others, and the motor foundations of bodily awareness. The source dossier provides access to the PubMed abstract, not the full text.

Sensory differences, but no single profile

In the studies reviewed, autistic participants frequently showed differences in the timing and weighting of information from several senses. Some experiments reported reduced or delayed susceptibility to body ownership illusions, which experimentally alter the perception of what belongs to one's body.

Greater reliance on proprioceptive or immediate sensory information was also reported. Other findings concerned the space around the body and between people, the distinction between self and others, the sense of initiating an action, and movement planning and execution.

These observations are not uniform, however. They vary across tasks, developmental stages and study groups. Relatively preserved performance appears particularly under certain conditions involving a single sense or little sensory noise.

A research avenue, not yet a clinical tool

The important distinction is between association and causality: these studies link certain types of sensory and motor processing to several components of body representation, without demonstrating that the former cause the differences observed in the latter.

The diversity of methods and samples also limits clinical conclusions. The review does not establish a validated individualized intervention. Its authors call for larger, more representative samples, longitudinal follow-up and standardized methods to determine whether these mechanisms could genuinely guide assessment or support.

What we can take away

This review encourages studying sensations, movement and body representation together in autism, without reducing autistic people to a single pattern of sensory functioning.