Visual scanning of social stimuli in preterm and autism spectrum disorder children.

Abstract

To evaluate the pattern of eye-gaze of preterm (PT), autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and neurotypical (Ty) children. A cross-sectional study with eight preterm (born with ≤2000 g weight), nine ASD and five Ty male children, between six and nine years old, was performed. The eye gaze was evaluated presenting a board with a couple in social interaction, and a video with four children playing with blocks, projected in a screen computer, successively, evaluating the time that the children looked at each stimulus. Although all the groups focus on the central social figure with no significant differences, ASD presented significant differences in time fixation of the objects (p=0.021), while premature children fixated more time in the central social interaction than in the whole scene than typical children. Although this study found noteworthy differences in the eye-gaze patterns among the three groups, additional research with a more extensive participant pool is necessary to validate these preliminary results.