Affect and gaze responses during an Emotion-Evoking Task in infants at an increased likelihood for autism spectrum disorder.
Lori-Ann R Sacrey, Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, Jessica A Brian and 5 others
PMID 34615540WHAT IT FOUND
Infants with an older sibling with autism showed more negative facial and vocal reactions to routine care tasks like hair brushing and face washing.
They also looked at the objects less than peers. These observed behaviors, but not parent questionnaires, predicted higher autism symptoms at age two.
Key findings
01Infants at increased likelihood for autism displayed higher rates of negative affect than low-likelihood infants during hair brushing and face washing phases of the Emotion-Evoking Task.
02Infants at increased likelihood spent less time looking at the task objects overall, with significant differences seen during toy removal and mask phases.
03Gaze and affect measures from the Emotion-Evoking Task at 18 months predicted ADOS-2 symptom scores at 24 months, whereas parent-reported temperament scores did not.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study compared infants at increased likelihood (siblings) to those at low likelihood, not diagnosed children to typical peers, so results may not generalize to all infants who later develop autism. The sample size was relatively small, particularly in the low-likelihood group (21 infants). The study did not use clinical best-estimate diagnoses to categorize outcomes, relying instead on ADOS-2 scores as a continuous measure of symptom severity. Gaze and affect were measured at 12 and 18 months, but the predictive value for later symptoms was primarily driven by the 18-month data.
Declared interests
The authors declared no competing interests. The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Fondation Brain Canada, Azrieli Foundation, and Autism Science Foundation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret these findings as evidence that parent-reported temperament questionnaires are useless for screening autism. The study shows that observed behaviors in specific tasks predicted symptoms, but the parent measures were not the primary comparison group for all outcomes, and the sample size limits generalizability. Also, the infants were not diagnosed with autism in this study; they were assessed for symptom severity at 24 months.