Shorter spontaneous fixation durations in infants with later emerging autism
Wass, S.V. and Jones, Emily J.H. and Gliga, Teodora and Smith, Tim J. and Charman, T. and Johnson, Mark H. and Baron-Cohen, S. and Bedford, R. and Bolton, P. and Chandler, S. and Davies, K. and Fernandes, J. and Garwood, H. and Hudry, K. and Maris, H. and Pasco, G. and Pickles, A. and Ribiero, H. and Tucker, L. and Volein, Agnes (2015) Shorter spontaneous fixation durations in infants with later emerging autism. Scientific Reports 5 , p. 8284. ISSN 2045-2322.
11597.pdf - Published Version of Record
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep08284
Little is known about how spontaneous attentional deployment differs on a millisecond-level scale in the early development of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We measured fine-grained eye movement patterns in 6-to 9-month-old infants at high or low familial risk (HR/LR) of ASD while they viewed static images. We observed shorter fixation durations (i.e. the time interval between saccades) in HR than LR infants. Preliminary analyses indicate that these results were replicated in a second cohort of infants. Fixation durations were shortest in those infants who went on to receive an ASD diagnosis at 36 months. While these findings demonstrate early-developing atypicality in fine-grained measures of attentional deployment early in the etiology of ASD, the specificity of these effects to ASD remains to be determined.
Emotion, Oculomotor system, Human behaviour