The importance of the eyes: communication skills in infants of blind parents

Atsushi Senju,Mayada Elsabbagh,Greg Pasco,Mark H Johnson,Tony Charman,Kristelle Hudry,Leslie Tucker

doi:10.1098/rspb.2013.0436

Abstract

The effects of selectively different experience of eye contact and gaze behaviour on the early development of five sighted infants of blind parents were investigated. Infants were assessed longitudinally at 6–10, 12–15 and 24–47 months. Face scanning and gaze following were assessed using eye tracking. In addition, established measures of autistic-like behaviours and standardized tests of cognitive, motor and linguistic development, as well as observations of naturalistic parent–child interaction were collected. These data were compared with those obtained from a larger group of sighted infants of sighted parents. Infants with blind parents did not show an overall decrease in eye contact or gaze following when they observed sighted adults on video or in live interactions, nor did they show any autistic-like behaviours. However, they directed their own eye gaze somewhat less frequently towards their blind mothers and also showed improved performance in visual memory and attention at younger ages. Being reared with significantly reduced experience of eye contact and gaze behaviour does not preclude sighted infants from developing typical gaze processing and other social-communication skills. Indeed, the need to switch between different types of communication strategy may actually enhance other skills during development.

Highlights

Human infants are highly sensitive to adults’ communicative signals, such as use of eye contact, from the first few days after birth [1]
Our study provides the first empirical, systematic and longitudinal investigation of infants reared with specific reduced experience of eye contact and gaze behaviour owing to blindness in the primary carer
The results clearly demonstrated that no SIBP showed any autistic-like behaviours during the early infant and toddler years of life, indicating that early and ongoing interaction with a blind primary carer is not associated with clear and pervasive/persistent atypicalities in social-communication skills development

Summary

Introduction

Human infants are highly sensitive to adults’ communicative signals, such as use of eye contact, from the first few days after birth [1]. The nativist perspective, for example, proposes the existence of an innate module called the eye direction detector, which is to a large extent independent of postnatal experience [11] This perspective predicts no effect of parental sight and the use of their gaze in social communication on the development of infant gazeprocessing skills. The affective learning viewpoint [13,14,15] further emphasizes the role of postnatal experience, especially in the role of the reward value of eye contact which could emerge as a result of extensive exposure to the co-occurrence of eye contact and a wide variety of positive experiences through social interaction and communication [16], or the effect of social reinforcement on the development of infants’ gaze-following behaviour [14,15] From this position, SIBP could fail to develop the usual type of expertise and interest in adults’ gaze because their use of eye contact and gaze processing are not reciprocated by blind parents and do not become rewarding

Material and methods

Results

Discussion