Precursors to Social and Communication Difficulties in Infants At-Risk for Autism: Gaze Following and Attentional Engagement
Precursors to Social and Communication Difficulties in Infants At-Risk for Autism: Gaze Following and Attentional Engagement
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DOI：
10.1007/s10803-012-1450-y
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发表时间：
2012-10-01
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Johnson, Mark H.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bedford, Rachael;Elsabbagh, Mayada;Johnson, Mark H.
虽然自闭症中的联合注意力（JA）损伤已被广泛研究，但对凝视跟随的早期发展知之甚少，这是建立JA的前兆。我们采用眼动追踪法记录了有和没有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）家族史的婴儿在7个月和13个月时的纵向注视。在两个年龄段的高危和低危婴儿之间，在注视行为方面没有发现组间差异。然而，尽管在13个月时成功地进行了凝视，但与通常发展中的风险兄弟姐妹和低风险对照组相比，后期出现社会沟通困难的风险婴儿（36个月时患有ASD和非典型发育的婴儿）对一致物体的注意力较少。研究结果表明，婴儿期JA的微妙困难可能与ASD和其他非典型结局有关。
Whilst joint attention (JA) impairments in autism have been widely studied, little is known about the early development of gaze following, a precursor to establishing JA. We employed eye-tracking to record gaze following longitudinally in infants with and without a family history of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at 7 and 13 months. No group difference was found between at-risk and low-risk infants in gaze following behaviour at either age. However, despite following gaze successfully at 13 months, at-risk infants with later emerging socio-communication difficulties (both those with ASD and atypical development at 36 months of age) allocated less attention to the congruent object compared to typically developing at-risk siblings and low-risk controls. The findings suggest that the subtle emergence of difficulties in JA in infancy may be related to ASD and other atypical outcomes.