Visual disengagement in the infant siblings of children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are impaired in visually disengaging attention in both social and non-social contexts. These impairments may, in subtler form, also affect the infant siblings of children with ASD (ASD-sibs). We investigated patterns of visual attention (gazing) in 6-month-old ASD-sibs (n = 17) and the siblings of typically developing children (COMP-sibs: n = 17) during the Face-to-Face/Still-Face Protocol (FFSF), in which parents are sequentially responsive, non-responsive, and responsive to their infants. Throughout the protocol, ASD-sibs shifted their gaze to and from their parents' faces less frequently than did COMP-sibs. The mean durations of ASD-sibs' gazes away from their parents' faces were longer than those of COMP-sibs. ASD-sibs and COMP-sibs did not differ in the mean durations of gazes at their parents' faces. In sum, ASD-sibs showed no deficits in visual interest to their parents' faces, but greater interest than COMP-sibs in non-face stimuli.