Abstract
Anticipatory looking in the context of goal-directed actions emerges during the first year of life. However, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show diminished social gaze and anticipation while observing goal-directed actions. The current study examined a therapist-mediated social intervention targeting action-anticipation, goal-extraction, and social gaze in 18 children with ASD diagnosis. Before and after the intervention period, children viewed a video displaying a toddler repeatedly placing blocks into a bowl using a cross-body motion. Gaze to the actor’s face and anticipatory gaze to the goal location were analyzed. Results revealed that young children with ASD understand repeated actions and demonstrate goal-extraction even before exposure to the intervention. Further, targeted social intervention experience led to a redistribution of attention in favor of the actor’s face, while retaining action intention comprehension of the block transfer activity. Attention to social aspects during action observation by children with ASD could have favorable cascading effects on social reciprocity, social contingency, and theory of mind development.
Highlights
Development of social competence and collaboration requires an ability to infer meaning and intention of others’ actions during dynamic human interaction
Some researchers have proposed a more liberal latency value of 200 ms rather than 0 to account for oculomotor coordination time (Gredebäck, et al, 2009; Canfield, et al, 1997; von Hofsten, Uhlig, Adell, & Kochukhova, 2009). Using this more liberal latency value, our results support the presence of action anticipation (M = 326.98ms, standard error values (SE) = 115.56ms, t(17) = 2.8, p = .012, d = .667). This agrees with previous studies using similar analyses to report spontaneous action anticipation in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Falck-Ytter, 2010)
The current study investigated action anticipation, goal extraction, and social interest in young children with ASD while viewing a naturalistic scene of another child engaging with toy blocks
Summary
Development of social competence and collaboration requires an ability to infer meaning and intention of others’ actions during dynamic human interaction. Infants learn to form associations between facial cues, gaze direction, and mental state (Scaife & Bruner, 1975) These early-emerging abilities are foundational and support the development of a theory of mind and other social-cognitive skills (Senju, et al, 2010). Early emerging impairments in children’s ability to glean information about others’ intentions could have cascading consequences for social development (Bhat, Landa, & Galloway, 2011) This is of importance for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), who show social and communication delays later in life and have been noted to exhibit early emerging impairments in reciprocal social interaction (Landa, Holman, & Garrett-Mayer, 2007; Wetherby, Watt, Morgan, & Shumway, 2007)
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