Brief Report: Using a Point-of-View Camera to Measure Eye Gaze in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder During Naturalistic Social Interactions: A Pilot Study.

The study was a pilot with eight children with autism and seven typically developing children, so the findings are preliminary. The children were observed during a short, scripted play task with an examiner, not during everyday free play or natural settings. The point-of-view camera did not show exact eye gaze. Coders could not separate looks to the eyes from looks to nearby areas such as eyebrows or the bridge of the nose. The stationary-camera method did not detect group differences, and the combined eyes-and-face comparison from stationary cameras did not clearly show a group difference. The authors said the findings require replication with larger samples and more natural settings.

The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Do not treat the point-of-view camera as a ready clinical assessment tool. The study had eight children with autism and seven typically developing children, used a scripted five-minute play task, and the authors said the findings are preliminary and need replication.