• autism spectrum disorder
• inertial measurement unit
• motor deficit

Autism is associated with a wide and complex array of neurobehavioral symptoms. The most known of these are the difficulties in understanding and responding appropriately to others but there also are other problems concerning to biological motion and motor controls. This study investigates some features of a pick -and-place movement execution of children with autism through the realization of an appropriate clinical protocol and a new sensorized toy. The sensorized toy was a simple plywood cube with an embedded inertial sensor. The clinical protocol consisted in the child playing a game with the cube while inertial sensor recorded data related to the child's movements. During the game, the sensorized cube as moved by the child between two boxes. Different groups of participants were included in the study in order to analyse the differences in motor patterns between healthy adults, 3 and 5 years old healthy children, 4-6 years old autistic children. The profile of acceleration and jerk time series obtained during the execution of the game were analized and the differences between each group were computed. Results show that autistic children have more difficulties in concentrating into the execution of the game and that they move with atypical kinematics, supporting the idea that movement disturbances may play a part in the phenomenon of autism.