. 2021 Jul 13;12:631596. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.631596

TABLE 3.

Examples of catatonia-like features from participant reports.

Catatonia	Example of related experience from focus groups
Periods of shutdown^a, being very still for long periods of time^b	I’m going to make a drink and standing and then realizing an hour later that I’m still standing in front of the kettle and haven’t actually done anything. I’m thinking but why, how has that happened? - Sam
Movement difficulties (freezing and getting stuck)^a, getting ‘stuck’ when trying to complete actions^b	It feels like I’m holding my breath and my body is frozen. It’s a literal inertia. I mean it’s a literal paralysis and very often I will find that I am actually holding my breath… So the feeling of it is literal, nothing moving, no thought, no breath, no movement. - Emma
Difficulty stopping actions once they have been started ^b	I find one of my things is reading news websites now, and that I just end up reading sometimes different articles and sometimes sort of the same one over and over. - Lisa
Difficulty initiating actions^b	I’m finding it really difficult to actually just pick up a book and get started. - Lisa
Increased slowness^a, moving very slowly^b	I feel I can move but like really slowly and only to like lie down or curl into a ball as I feel frozen or freezing up. - Kelly
Prompt dependence^a, taking a long time to finish actions or requiring prompts to complete actions^b	If I’m struggling to get to bed and my partner has already gone to sleep, chances are at some point, he might get up to go to the loo or at least I know at some point he’s going to get up in the morning. And that will probably unstick me… - Lisa
Movement abnormalities^a	When I put the washing machine on, I find I spend an hour in the kitchen […] kind of swaying around or juggling or just doing things […] And somehow, that washing machine, when it’s on it’s like I’m magnetized into the kitchen. - Daniel
Passivity and apparent lack of motivation^a	If I’m wanting to do a social thing, I’d like to spend time with people, I have difficulty initiating […] I wouldn’t even sometimes think to contact them to start it. I’ll just go, I would have liked to have been doing something with somebody and it’s been quite a new thing to realize that I can start a conversation with somebody like somebody else doesn’t have to start the conversation first which isn’t always evident. - Ruth
Posturing^a	It’s like im frozen in time… at worst it can hurt cause it feels like I want to move but can’t - Brian
Fluctuations of difficulty^a	I just find myself utterly baffled when I’m just stuck. And sometimes, I’m stuck for days on end and just in the contrast with how productive I can be on other days. It just baffles me. – Elizabeth
Catatonic excitement^a	Not evident in the data.

Characteristics of autistic catatonia drawn from two sources, as indicated: ^aPrimary difficulties and manifestations of autistic catatonia (Shah, 2019, p. 29). ^b‘Core’ features of catatonia in autism from Attenuated Behaviour Questionnaire (Breen, 2014).