Journal
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY
Volume 75, Issue 3, Pages 231-237Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.07.009
Keywords
Autism; eye-tracking; faces; infants; social attention; speech
Categories
Funding
- National Institute of Child Health and Development [PO1 HD003008]
- National Institute of Mental Health [R01 MH087554 1, R03MH086732, R03 MH092618-01A1]
- Associates of the Child Study Center
- CTSA from National Center for Advancing Translational Science, components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) [UL1 RR024139]
- NIH roadmap for Medical Research
- [1139078]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Background: From birth, infants show a preference for the faces, gaze, and voices of others. In individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) these biases seem to be disturbed. The source of these disturbances is not well-understood, but recent efforts have shown that the spontaneous deployment of attention to social targets might be atypical as early as 6 months of age. The nature of this atypical behavior and the conditions under which it arises are currently unknown. Methods: We used eye-tracking to examine the gaze patterns of 6-month-old infants (n = 99) at high risk (n = 57) and low risk (n = 42) for developing ASD as they viewed faces that were: 1) still; 2) moving and expressing positive affect; or 3) speaking. Clinical outcomes were determined through a comprehensive assessment at the age of 3 years. The scanning patterns of infants later diagnosed with ASD were compared with infants without an ASD outcome. Results: Infants who later developed ASD spent less time looking at the presented scenes in general than other infants. When these infants looked at faces, their looking toward the inner features of faces decreased compared with the other groups only when the presented face was speaking. Conclusions: Our study suggests that infants later diagnosed with ASD have difficulties regulating attention to complex social scenes. It also suggests that the presence of speech might uniquely disturb the attention of infants who later develop ASD at a critical developmental point when other infants are acquiring language and learning about their social world.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available