Limited attentional bias for faces in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders.
BACKGROUND
Toddlers with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit poor face recognition and atypical scanning patterns in response to faces. It is not clear if face-processing deficits are also expressed on an attentional level. Typical individuals require more effort to shift their attention from faces compared with other objects. This increased disengagement cost is thought to reflect deeper processing of these socially relevant stimuli.


OBJECTIVE
To examine if attention disengagement from faces is atypical in the early stages of ASD.


METHODS
Attention disengagement was tested in a variation of the cued attention task in which participants were required to move their visual attention from face or nonface central fixation stimuli and make a reactive saccade to a peripheral target. The design involved diagnosis as a between-group factor and central fixation stimuli type as a within-group factor.


METHODS
Participants were taken from a cohort of patients at a university-based specialized clinic or from a pool of subjects participating in a prospective study of social cognition in ASD.


METHODS
Toddlers with ASD (mean age, 32 months [n = 42]) were compared with toddlers with nonautistic developmental delays (mean age, 29 months [n = 31]) and with typically developing toddlers (mean age, 29 months [n = 46]).


METHODS
Saccadic reaction time.


RESULTS
Developmentally delayed and typically developing toddlers had more difficulties disengaging visual attention from faces than toddlers with ASD. This effect was not present in response to nonfacial stimuli. These results suggest that toddlers with ASD are not captivated by faces to the same extent as toddlers without ASD and that this effect is not driven by a generalized impairment in disengagement of attention.


CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest that face-processing difficulties in toddlers with ASD involve disruption of an attentional mechanism that typically supports deeper processing of these highly socially relevant stimuli.
Chawarska
Katarzyna
K
Yale University School of Medicine, Child Study Center, New Haven, CT 06510, USA. katarzyna.chawarska@yale.edu
Volkmar
Fred
F
Klin
Ami
A
D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003463:Cues; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011930:Reaction Time; D012438:Saccades; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012938:Social Perception