Associations Between Upright Cardiovascular-Autonomic Characteristics, Temporal Gait Measures, and Mediolateral Plantar Center-of-Force Measures in Adults with Developmental Disabilities: An Exploratory Cross-Sectional Study

Background and Objectives: Adults with developmental disabilities may show altered gait and autonomic regulation, but their relationship during upright function remains unclear. This study examined associations between upright cardiovascular-autonomic characteristics, temporal gait measures, and mediolateral plantar center-of-force (COF) measures and secondarily compared intellectual disability (ID) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) groups. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study included 24 adults. Measures were the change in heart rate from supine to standing (ΔHR), standing root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD), standard deviation of normal-to-normal intervals (SDNN), and normalized high-frequency power [HF (nu)]. F-Scan 3-Box outputs from three 6-meter walks provided eight gait measures, including trial-to-trial coefficients of variation (CV) and symmetry index (SI) of temporal variables. Thirty-two primary partial rank correlations were adjusted for age, sex, and body mass index (BMI), with Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate (BH-FDR) correction.