Perceptions of self and other: Social judgments and gaze patterns to videos of adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorder.
Ruth B Grossman, Julia Mertens, Emily Zane
PMID 30014714WHAT IT FOUND
Adolescents with and without autism judged peers with autism less positively than peers without autism from brief videos and looked less at the faces of peers with autism, even when the rater also had autism.
Key findings
01Both groups rated peers without autism more favorably than peers with autism on questions about social qualities and willingness to engage.
02Adolescents with autism judged peers with autism more negatively than adolescents without autism did on questions about social awkwardness and spending time alone.
03Both groups looked less at the faces of adolescents with autism than at the faces of adolescents without autism.
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 small sample and the authors said the findings cannot be generalized without replication. The videos were short clips of elicited story retelling, not live conversation. The videos showed only male stimulus producers. The people in the videos wore small reflective markers on their faces, which participants were asked to ignore. Eye-tracking analyses used fewer participants than the rating analyses because low-quality tracking data were removed.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read reduced looking at peers with autism as evidence that participants with autism lack social interest. Both groups looked less at the faces of peers with autism, and participants with autism did not show lower overall face looking than participants without autism.