Review Paper A developmental and clinical perspective of rhythmic interpersonal coordination: From mimicry toward the interconnection of minds Jean Xavier a,b,⇑ , Julien Magnat c , Alain Sherman d , Soizic Gauthier e , David Cohen a,b , Laurence Chaby b,f a Département de Psychiatrie de l’Enfant et l’Adolescent, APHP, Groupe Hospitalier Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France b Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et Robotique, ISIR, CNRS UMR 7222, Paris, France c Pôle de psychiatrie de l’enfant et de l’adolescent, centre hospitalier Montperrin, 109, avenue du PetitBarthélémy, 13617 Aix-en-Provence, France d Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA e CRPMS, EA 3522, Université Paris Diderot, et Equipe Berthoz, Collège de France, Paris, France f Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Institut de Psychologie, Boulogne-Billancourt, France article info Article history: Received 28 July 2016 Received in revised form 28 March 2017 Accepted 14 June 2017 Available online xxxx Keywords: Imitation Rhythmic interpersonal coordination Synchrony Similarity Empathy Developmental coordination disorder abstract Imitation plays a critical role in the development of intersubjectivity and serves as a prerequisite for understanding the emotions and intentions of others. In our review, we consider spontaneous motor imi- tation between children and their peers as a developmental process involving repetition and perspective- taking as well as flexibility and reciprocity. During childhood, this playful dynamic challenges developing visuospatial abilities and requires temporal coordination between partners. As such, we address syn- chrony as form of communication and social signal per se, that leads, from an experience of similarity, to the interconnection of minds. In this way, we argue that, from a developmental perspective, rhythmic interpersonal coordination through childhood imitative interactions serves as a precursor to higher- level social and cognitive abilities, such as theory of mind (TOM) and empathy. Finally, to clinically illustrate our idea, we focus on developmental coordination disorder (DCD), a condition characterized not only by learning difficulties, but also childhood deficits in motor imitation. We address the challenges faced by these children on an emotional and socio-interactional level through the perspective of their impair- ments in intra- and interpersonal synchrony. Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 00 2. Peer imitation in children: A rhythmic interpersonal coordination .............................................................. 00 3. Interactional synchrony: From the experience of similarity to the connection of minds ............................................. 00 4. Interpersonal rhythmic coordination in the development of empathy............................................................ 00 5. Rhythmic coordination impairments in developmental coordination disorder (DCD) ................................................ 00 6. Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 00 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... 00 References ........................................................................................................... 00 1. Introduction From a developmental perspective, the body, with its sensori- motor abilities, is the fundamental medium through which we interact with our environment. In this paper, we focus on motor imitation, a bodily interaction critical to the development of human intersubjectivity, particularly with respect to communica- tion and precursory intentionality (Meltzoff and Gopnik, 1993; Nadel and Potier, 2002; Meltzoff and Decety, 2003; Rogers et al., 2005). Imitation provides the sense of a shared experience and, accord- ing to its aspects of ‘‘social mirroring, social modeling and self- practice” in infancy, is a prerequisite of the self (Meltzoff, 1990). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jphysparis.2017.06.001 0928-4257/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author at: Département de Psychiatrie de l’Enfant et l’Adoles- cent, APHP, Groupe Hospitalier Pitié-Salpêtrière, 47-83 Bd de l’hôpital, Paris 75013, France. E-mail address: jean.xavier@aphp.fr (J. Xavier). Journal of Physiology - Paris xxx (2017) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Physiology - Paris journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jphysparis Please cite this article in press as: Xavier, J., et al. A developmental and clinical perspective of rhythmic interpersonal coordination: From mimicry toward the interconnection of minds. J. Physiol. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jphysparis.2017.06.001