title: Paternal autistic traits are predictive of infants visual attention.
abstract: Since subthreshold autistic social impairments aggregate in family members, and since attentional dysfunctions appear to be one of the earliest cognitive markers of children with autism, we investigated in the general population the relationship between infants' attentional functioning and the autistic traits measured in their parents. Orienting and alerting attention systems were measured in 8-month-old infants using a spatial cueing paradigm. Results showed that only paternal autistic traits were linked to their children's: (1) attentional disengagement; (2) rapid attentional orienting and (3) alerting. Our findings suggest that an early dysfunction of orienting and alerting systems might alter the developmental trajectory of future ability in social cognition and communication.
authors.affiliation: Developmental and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ronconi
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Facoetti
authors.forename: Hermann
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bulf
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Franchin
authors.forename: Roberta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bettoni
authors.forename: Eloisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Valenza
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D003142:Communication; D005220:Fathers / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D012919:Social Behavior; D014785:Vision, Ocular