Abstract
Eye tracking has the potential to characterize autism at a unique intermediate level, with links ‘down’ to underlying neurocognitive networks, as well as ‘up’ to everyday function and dysfunction. Because it is non-invasive and does not require advanced motor responses or language, eye tracking is particularly important for the study of young children and infants. In this article, we review eye tracking studies of young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children at risk for ASD. Reduced looking time at people and faces, as well as problems with disengagement of attention, appear to be among the earliest signs of ASD, emerging during the first year of life. In toddlers with ASD, altered looking patterns across facial parts such as the eyes and mouth have been found, together with limited orienting to biological motion. We provide a detailed discussion of these and other key findings and highlight methodological opportunities and challenges for eye tracking research of young children with ASD. We conclude that eye tracking can reveal important features of the complex picture of autism.
Highlights
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition defined by impairments across the areas of reciprocal social interaction and verbal and non-verbal communication, alongside repetitive and stereotyped behaviors [1]
A similar pattern was observed in another recent eye tracking study by the same group, which suggested that compared to all other groups, 6-month-olds who later received an ASD diagnosis looked less at the inner features of the face when the face was speaking [35]
When these authors used the same stimuli with older children [31], they identified reduced attention to the face together with increased looking time towards non-social objects, which is in line with other studies of toddlers [44]. This outcome may indicate that increased attention to non-social objects is not the cause of low preference for social information but could be a consequence of it. Another recent eye tracking study of preschoolers found that preference for faces presented together with objects was similar in children with ASD and in children with typical development except when the object belonged to categories such as trains, vehicles and airplanes [45]
Summary
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition defined by impairments across the areas of reciprocal social interaction and verbal and non-verbal communication, alongside repetitive and stereotyped behaviors [1]. A similar pattern was observed in another recent eye tracking study by the same group, which suggested that compared to all other groups, 6-month-olds who later received an ASD diagnosis looked less at the inner features of the face when the face was speaking [35]. Two studies (both using static stimuli) suggested that young children with ASD look less at key face areas and less at the mouth than typically developing children [39,41] One of these reports indicated that looking patterns during face observation become more scattered in ASD during the early preschool years [39]. The available eye tracking studies indicate that the way children with ASD look at faces in such contexts relates both to the memory for the faces they observe [39] and to behavioral profiles (for example, language function) in everyday life [37,40]
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