Distinct social attention profiles in preschoolers with autism contrasted to fragile X syndrome.
Carla A Wall, Frederick Shic, Sreeja Varanasi and 1 others
PMID 36408848WHAT IT FOUND
Preschoolers with autism and fragile X syndrome both showed reduced initial eye contact and less attention to social scenes than typical peers.
However, children with fragile X looked at faces as much as typical peers did, while those with autism looked at faces significantly less.
Key findings
01Both children with non-syndromic autism (nsASD) and fragile X syndrome (FXS) made significantly less initial eye contact during a live greeting compared to typically developing (NT) children.
02In a video task, children with nsASD looked at the actress's face significantly less than both children with FXS and NT children, who did not differ from each other.
03For children with FXS, higher developmental ability was associated with increased attention to the social scene, a link not found in the nsASD or NT groups.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was small (76 participants), which limits the generalizability of the findings. Eye-tracking measured attention to the whole face, not specific features like the eyes, which might mask more nuanced social attention patterns. The study only measured initial eye contact with a novel person, ignoring how eye contact might change as children become familiar with the interaction partner. The nsASD group all had intellectual disability, so findings may not apply to autistic children without intellectual disability.
Declared interests
One author (FS) consults for Roche and Janssen pharmaceutical companies. The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the similar levels of reduced initial eye contact in autism and fragile X as evidence that the underlying social attention deficits are the same. The study shows distinct profiles: children with fragile X maintained typical facial attention in passive tasks, while children with autism did not.