Gaze Following as an Early Diagnostic Marker of Autism in a New Word Learning Task in Toddlers.
Raquel Camero, Carlos Gallego, Verónica Martínez
PMID 37410255WHAT IT FOUND
Toddlers with a high likelihood of autism looked at eyes and mouths far less than typically developing peers during a word-learning task, focusing almost entirely on objects.
Eye-tracking detected the autism group in 96.5% of cases, suggesting gaze patterns could serve as an early diagnostic marker.
Key findings
01Children with a high likelihood of ASD spent significantly less time looking at the eyes and mouth compared to typically developing children, while looking more at objects.
02The eye-tracking procedure correctly identified 96.5% of the participants with a high likelihood of ASD.
03Most children with a high likelihood of ASD (92.98%) never looked at the mouth when a new pseudo-word was spoken, whereas all typically developing children did.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used a video-based task, which does not reflect natural face-to-face interaction. The ASD group was matched for developmental age but was significantly older in chronological age than the TD group. The study did not record where children looked when they were not focusing on the eyes, mouth, or objects.
Declared interests
The study was funded by Universidad de Oviedo. No specific financial conflicts of interest involving commercial entities were declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume this eye-tracking task is a ready-made clinical diagnostic tool. The 96.5% detection rate comes from a controlled study comparing a group already identified with a high likelihood of ASD against a typical group; it has not been validated for screening in undifferentiated populations.