Children often show imitative errors. They frequently mistake the correct hand to use when a cross-body model is presented (e.g., children often touch their right ear with the right hand when the model touches his/her left ear with the right hand, i.e., a contra-ipsi error). In this experiment, we investigated how the contra-ipsi error rate correlates with the CARS (Childhood Autism Rating Scale) score and the developmental age in children with autism spectrum disorder. Six children with autism spectrum disorder participated in this experiment. During the experiment, each participant and the experimenter sat in chairs face-to-face while the experimenter presented a model stimulus. Six types of model stimuli were presented : left hand to left ear, right hand to right ear, both hands to ipsilateral ears, left hand to right ear, right hand to left ear, and both hands to contralateral ears. The results showed that the incidence of contra-ipsi errors varied widely among the participants. A high positive correlation was found between the contra-ipsi error rate and the CARS score (r＝.843, p＜.05). By contrast, there was no correlation between the contra-ipsi error rate and developmental age. The results suggest that the tendency for children with autism spectrum disorder to make contra-ipsi errors during motor imitations has a stronger relationship with autism severity than with motor or cognitive development.

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