ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a top-down approach to the possible relations between cognition and movements. Despite its relevance to help us formulate questions regarding motor control differences in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the top-down approach tends to obstruct the ability to bridge cognition and action in neurodevelopment. The cognitivist researcher describes the individual performing a socially oriented or purposeful behavior that has already matured to some extent. The top-down inferences that cognitive theories make about the functioning of the mind are not based on evolving physical bodies with embedded evolving nervous systems, developing from the bottom up. The chapter deals with the proposition that a bottom-up approach to neurodevelopment at the early stages may be more appropriate to capture the dynamic and variable nature of the nervous systems in transition to deliberate autonomy of the brain over the body.
