Attention to eyes is present but in decline in 2–6-month-old infants later diagnosed with autism
Warren Jones,Ami Klin +1 more
TLDR
It is shown in a prospective longitudinal study that infants later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) exhibit mean decline in eye fixation from 2 to 6 months of age, a pattern not observed in infants who do not develop ASD.Abstract:
Deficits in eye contact have been a hallmark of autism since the condition's initial description. They are cited widely as a diagnostic feature and figure prominently in clinical instruments; however, the early onset of these deficits has not been known. Here we show in a prospective longitudinal study that infants later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) exhibit mean decline in eye fixation from 2 to 6 months of age, a pattern not observed in infants who do not develop ASD. These observations mark the earliest known indicators of social disability in infancy, but also falsify a prior hypothesis: in the first months of life, this basic mechanism of social adaptive action--eye looking--is not immediately diminished in infants later diagnosed with ASD; instead, eye looking appears to begin at normative levels prior to decline. The timing of decline highlights a narrow developmental window and reveals the early derailment of processes that would otherwise have a key role in canalizing typical social development. Finally, the observation of this decline in eye fixation--rather than outright absence--offers a promising opportunity for early intervention that could build on the apparent preservation of mechanisms subserving reflexive initial orientation towards the eyes.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Advancing the understanding of autism disease mechanisms through genetics
TL;DR: Current understanding of the genetic architecture of ASD is reviewed and genetic evidence, neuropathology and studies in model systems with how they inform mechanistic models of ASD pathophysiology are integrated.
Journal ArticleDOI
Identification, Evaluation, and Management of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.
TL;DR: This single clinical report updates the 2007 American Academy of Pediatrics clinical reports on the evaluation and treatment of ASD in one publication with an online table of contents and section view available to help the reader identify topic areas within the report.
Journal ArticleDOI
Developmental pathways to autism: a review of prospective studies of infants at risk.
TL;DR: Prospective studies of infants at familial risk are characterizing developmental pathways to ASD and early neurocognitive markers include atypical neural response to gaze and slowed disengagement.
Journal ArticleDOI
Gene hunting in autism spectrum disorder: on the path to precision medicine
TL;DR: In this article, a convergent pathway for converging pathophysiology in autism spectrum disorder has been proposed, but how this notion of convergent pathways will translate into therapeutics remains to be established.
Journal ArticleDOI
Visual social attention in autism spectrum disorder: Insights from eye tracking studies.
TL;DR: Results show that social orienting is actually not qualitatively impaired and that decreased attention to faces does not generalized across contexts.
References
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