Autistic Children Quickly Orient Away from Both Eyes and Mouths During Face Observation.
Lilja Kristín Jónsdóttir, Janina Neufeld, Terje Falck-Ytter and 1 others
PMID 35138557WHAT IT FOUND
Children with autism looked away faster than typically developing children, whether they first looked at the eyes or the mouth.
They were not slower to look toward either feature, so looking away may reflect quick disengagement rather than not looking toward the eyes.
Key findings
01Children with ASD looked away from the initially cued facial area faster than typically developing children, whether it was the eyes or the mouth.
02The ASD and control groups did not differ in how quickly they looked toward the eyes or mouth.
03Across all children, higher autism-trait scores were linked with faster looking away, and anxiety scores did not explain this.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 34 children were analyzed, so the authors call the results preliminary. The groups were not matched for IQ or sex, and the ASD group had 3 girls and 9 boys. The ASD group had fewer valid trials in some latency analyses, which can make the comparison less stable. Data were missing from two participants, consent was withdrawn for one participant, and diagnosis confirmation was missing for one child. Neither group was clinically anxious, so the study cannot say what happens when anxiety is high. The study used faces only, and the authors say future research needs non-social control stimuli.
Declared interests
The supplied text lists funders: Vetenskapsrådet, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse, Strategic Research Area Neuroscience, Stiftelsen Clas Groschinskys Minnesfond, and Uppsala University. It does not list competing interests.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that children with autism avoid eyes specifically. They also looked away faster from mouths, and they were not slower to look toward eyes or mouths.