Infancy and autism: progress, prospects, and challenges

doi:10.1016/S0079-6123(07)64020-5

Progress in Brain Research

Volume 164, 2007, Pages 355-383

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0079-6123(07)64020-5 Get rights and content

Abstract

We integrate converging evidence from a variety of research areas in typical and atypical development to motivate a developmental framework for understanding the emergence of autism in infancy and to propose future directions for a recent area of research focusing on infant siblings of children with autism. Explaining the cognitive profile in autism is best achieved through tracing the process through which associated symptoms emerge over development. Understanding this process would shed light on the underlying causes of this multifaceted condition through clarifying how and why a variety of risk factors, single or in combination, exert an impact on the resulting phenotype. We emphasize the importance of integrating theoretical models of typical development in understanding atypical development and argue for the need to develop continuous and individually valid measures for at-risk infants both for predictors and outcomes of autism symptoms.

Section snippets

Autism and infancy: an overview

Much research into autism over the past decades has presented a neat developmental story: a form of neurodevelopmental deficit, commonly attributed to brain networks subserving social cognition, leads to decreased attention to, or interest in, the social world. This early lack of attention to or interest in social stimuli interferes with the emergence of critical developmental milestones relevant for social cognition such as shared attention. These cascading influences eventually lead to

Approaches to the neurocognitive study of autism in infancy

A wide range of theoretical approaches have attempted to specify the “core deficits” in autism in adults and older children. This refers to aspects of cognition and their neural underpinnings that present a unifying and parsimonious characterization and/or causal explanation of autism. Several core deficits have been proposed. These include deficits in social orienting, attention, and motivation; deficits in executive function; and differences in low-level perceptual and attentional processes.

Infancy and autism at the crossroads: where do we go from here?

Models of developmental disorders have often focused on fractionating and describing patterns of strength and weaknesses in a given disorder, leaving behind the bulk of theoretical advances in our understanding of the emergent nature of some brain functions during development (Karmiloff-Smith, 1998; Johnson et al., 2005). A recent field of investigation focusing on infant siblings of children with autism has offered promise in contributing to our knowledge of the nature of this developmental

Concluding remarks

Recent advances in autism and in infancy research and the recent integration of these directions hold a lot of promise for solving some of the most difficult puzzles in autism. To understand the underlying causes of this condition and the process through which it emerges, any convincing model must encompass not only the symptoms which define the disorder but also other characteristics of the profile.

This is best achieved through making use of existing developmental models to motivate

Abbreviations

A not B, Object/spatial retrieval, Boxes, Alternation, Spatial reversal, Visual paired comparison DNMS (delayed non-match to sample)

various tasks assessing executive functions; see cited publications for details

ADI

autism diagnostic interview (standardized instrument for diagnosis)

ADOS

autism diagnostic observation schedule (standardized instrument for diagnosis)

ASD

autism spectrum disorders

Aut

autism

chronological age

CDI

McArthur communicative development inventory (standardized measure of

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank Leah Kaminsky for her help with reference materials, and Theodora Gliga, Atsuhi Senju, and Dick Aslin for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. This work was supported by the UK Medical Research Council Programme Grant G9715587.

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The group leaders provided information about development, ASD-related symptoms, and early detection and intervention. For instance, materials for Session 2 included information about neurotypical development, neuroplasticity, and early brain and language development in children (Dawson, 2008; Elsabbagh & Johnson, 2007). Researchers have recognized the value of psychoeducation for parents and caregivers.
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In one of the first studies of home videotapes of infants’ first birthdays, Osterling and Dawson (1994) found that failure to attend to other people's faces was the best discriminator between children with and without autism, suggesting that impairments in social cognition in children with autism might be due to early impairments in face processing abilities. The development and use of screening instruments designed to detect early signs of ASD (e.g., Baron-Cohen et al., 1996, Checklist for Autism in Toddlers—CHAT) made it possible to include in experimental studies younger children that met criteria for ASD (e.g., 18 months; see Charman et al., 1997), but the majority of findings potentially relevant for uncovering the developmental origins of the sociocognitive impairments associated with autism have come from prospective studies of the developmental trajectories of very young siblings of children already diagnosed with ASD (Elsabbagh & Johnson, 2007; Rogers, 2009; Yirmiya & Sally Ozonoff, 2007). The likelihood of developing ASD for these infants with an affected sibling is about five times higher than that of infants from families with no history of ASD (Ozonoff et al., 2011).
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Le dépistage précoce des Troubles du Spectre de l’Autisme (TSA) (avant 24 mois) chez les patients améliore significativement le pronostic évolutif de l’enfant. C’est pourquoi les chercheurs visent à identifier des précurseurs comportementaux et/ou neurophysiologiques présents dès les premiers mois de la vie de l’enfant. Des recherches prospectives sont en particulier effectuées au sein de fratries à risque de TSA. L’étude de fratries à risque consiste à suivre longitudinalement une cohorte de puînés d’enfants déjà diagnostiqués avec un TSA. Parmi ces enfants, 10 à 20 % d’entre eux recevront un diagnostic de TSA lors de leur troisième année. Notre article vise ainsi à synthétiser brièvement les études cliniques et neurophysiologiques explorant les marqueurs précoces associés à l’émergence des symptômes autistiques chez l’enfant.
Early recognition of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in patients before the age of 24 months significantly enhances the prognosis of affected children. That’s why researchers try to identify behavioral and/or neurophysiological precursors in the first months of life of children. Prospective studies are specifically performed in infant siblings at risk of ASD. The longitudinal high-risk sibling studies of ASD follow a cohort of children with an older sibling already diagnosed with ASD. Of these, 10-20 % will be diagnosed with ASD during their third year. This review aims to summarize the clinical and neurophysiological studies investigating early markers associated with the emergence of autistic symptoms in children.
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Infancy and autism: progress, prospects, and challenges

Abstract

Section snippets

Autism and infancy: an overview

Approaches to the neurocognitive study of autism in infancy

Infancy and autism at the crossroads: where do we go from here?

Concluding remarks

Abbreviations

Acknowledgment

Trends Cogn. Sci.

Int. J. Dev. Neurosci.

Lancet

Trends Cogn. Sci.

Biol. Psychiatry.

J. Appl. Dev. Psychol.

Cognition

Curr. Opin. Neurobiol.

Int. J. Psychophysiol.

Trends Cogn. Sci.

Trends Cogn. Sci.

Cognition

J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry

J. Pediatr.

Int. J. Dev. Neurosci.

Cognitive neuroscience of human social behaviour

Nat. Rev. Neurosci.

Diagnostic and statistical manual

Visual scanning and pupillary responses in young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

J. Clin. Exp. Neuropsychol.

Mapping autism risk loci using genetic linkage and chromosomal rearrangements

Nat. Genet.

The responses of autistic children to the distress of others

J. Autism Dev. Disord.

Autism as a strongly genetic disorder: evidence from a British twin study

Psychol. Med.

Can autism be detected at 18 months? The needle, the haystack, and the CHAT

Br. J. Psychiatry

Social intelligence in the normal and autistic brain: an fMRI study

Eur. J. Neurosci.

Bayley Scales of Infant Development

Autism and specific language impairment: categorical distinction or continuum?

A case-control family history study of autism

J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry

Autistic spectrum disorders: causal mechanisms and recent findings on attention and emotion

Int. J. Spec. Educ.

A prospective case series of high-risk infants who developed autism

J Autism Dev Disord

Early social and emotional communication in the infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorders: an examination of the broad phenotype

J. Autism Dev. Disord.

An experimental investigation of social-cognitive abilities in infants with autism: clinical implications

Infant Ment. Health J.

Automatic attention cueing through eye movement in 2-year-old children with autism

Child Dev.

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Dev. Sci.

Gaze fixation and the neural circuitry of face processing in autism

Nat. Neurosci.

Imitation and social responsiveness in autistic children

J. Abnorm. Child Psychol.

Neural correlates of face and object recognition in young children with autism spectrum disorder, developmental delay, and typical development

Child Dev.

Affective exchanges between young autistic children and their mothers

J. Abnorm. Child Psychol.

Neuropsychological correlates of early symptoms of autism

Child Dev.

Neurocognitive function and joint attention ability in young children with autism spectrum disorder versus developmental delay

Child Dev.

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J. Autism Dev. Disord.

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Dev. Psychol.

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Dev. Psychopathol.

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Dev. Sci.

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Dev. Psychopathol.

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Science

Spatial frequency and face processing in children with autism and Asperger syndrome