Archival ReportDecreased Spontaneous Attention to Social Scenes in 6-Month-Old Infants Later Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Section snippets
Participants
All infants (n = 117) participated in a prospective study of infants at risk for ASD due to genetic liability. The sample consisted of 67 high-risk and 50 low-risk infants. To be considered HR, an infant had to have an older sibling with a diagnosis of ASD. The older sibling’s diagnostic status was ascertained based on a review of assessment records, including the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-Generic (41) and/or the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (42). Infants considered as LR
Total Looking Time at the Scene
Each child contributed data to at least one condition and 85% contributed to three or four conditions such that the number of participants in each condition ranged from 6 to 10 in ASD, 15 to 18 in HR-ATYP, 9 to 13 in HR-TYP, and 28 to 31 in LR-TYP. Loss of eye-tracking data was attributed to saccades and blinks, as well as inattention. A mixed effects model group×condition analysis performed on the average %Scene indicated a significant effect of group, F(3,263) = 7.25, p<.001 and condition, F
Discussion
The study examined spontaneous social monitoring in 6-month-old infants later diagnosed with ASD. The infants exhibited diminished attention in general to a social scene, and when they did attend, they spent less time monitoring the person and looked less at the person’s face. Interestingly, diminished attention to the person did not translate into enhanced attention to the highly perceptually and semantically attractive objects and suggests that, at least in this experimental context, there is
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