Social Avoidance Emerges in Infancy and Persists into Adulthood in Fragile X Syndrome.

The sample was a convenience sample drawn from three related longitudinal studies, not a random sample. Only males were included, so the findings do not describe females with fragile X syndrome. The oldest participants were 25 years, so later adulthood is not covered. There were no typically developing comparison data after age 6, so the study cannot show how fragile X avoidance differs from typical development in adolescence or adulthood. Observations from ages 6 to 10 years were too few for inferential models and were not included in the main age analyses. Ratings were affected by site and by whether assessment was at home or in a lab, and the later rating was related to visit duration. The Social Avoidance Scale was developed by the first author, who was part of the contributing studies. The supplied text contains an apparent contradiction in the eye-contact familiar rating: the result sentence says the fragile X group was less likely to show age-appropriate eye contact, but the next sentence says they were 12.56 times more likely to show age-appropriate eye contact. This was an observational study, so it describes associations and trajectories; it does not test whether any intervention reduces avoidance.

The supplied text does not include a separate conflict-of-interest declaration. It reports that data came from studies supported by grant numbers R01MH090194, R01MH107573, R01HD024356, and P30HD003110, and it notes that the first author developed the Social Avoidance Scale and was part of the contributing studies.

Do not conclude that becoming less avoidant during a visit means social avoidance resolves with familiarity. In the adolescent/young adult group, 64% still showed avoidance at the end of the visit, and this was an observational study, not a treatment test.