Remote monitoring of social attention in neurogenetic syndromes and idiopathic neurodevelopmental disability.
Thomas W Frazier, Robyn M Busch, Patricia Klaas and 18 others
PMID 39643599WHAT IT FOUND
At-home webcam eye-tracking reliably measured social attention in people with rare genetic syndromes, including those with intellectual disability.
Global social attention scores correlated with autism symptoms and helped distinguish autism cases from non-cases, offering a scalable tool for remote assessment and trial monitoring.
Key findings
01Webcam-collected social attention measures achieved high data capture rates (87% for global social attention) and good internal consistency, even among participants with intellectual disability.
02Global social attention, facial affect recognition, and joint attention showed strong convergent validity with informant-reported autism symptoms and social communication deficits.
03Six of the nine social attention measures demonstrated statistically significant concurrent diagnostic validity for detecting ASD in neurogenetic syndrome cases, with global social attention showing the largest effect.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study relied on informant-reported diagnoses and cognitive levels rather than direct clinical assessment. There was no direct comparison to in-person laboratory gaze tracking. Sample sizes for specific syndromes (NFIX and other NDGS) were small. Test-retest reliability was poor for several specific measures (face processing, speed to faces, non-social preference), limiting their use for tracking change over time.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by the PTEN Research Foundation, Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, Autism Speaks, SynGAP Research Fund, Malan Syndrome Foundation, ADNP Kids Research Foundation, and NIH. Lead author Frazier has received funding from and holds equity in multiple companies and foundations related to autism research and diagnostics, including Quadrant Biosciences/Autism Analytica and iSCAN-R.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume all social attention sub-measures are stable over time. While global social attention and joint attention showed fair-to-good test-retest reliability, measures like face processing and speed to faces had poor stability, meaning they may reflect momentary state rather than trait-like abilities.