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During the first year of life, infants develop the capacity to follow the gaze of others. This behavior allows sharing attention and facilitates language acquisition and cognitive development. This article reviews studies that investigated gaze‐following before 12 months of age in typically developing infants and discusses current theoretical perspectives on early GF. Recent research has revealed that early GF is highly dependent on situational constraints and individual characteristics, but theories that describe the underlying mechanisms have partly failed to consider this complexity. We propose a novel framework termed the perceptual narrowing account of GF that may have the potential to integrate existing theoretical accounts.

BackgroundRecent investigations suggest a possible common genetic background between Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and Celiac Disease (CD). However, studies regarding this association are scarce and often limited by the small sample sizes and/or large heterogeneity among ASD groups in terms of demographic and clinical features. The present study aims to investigate the overall CD prevalence (biopsy proven-CD patients plus screening detected tTG and EMA positive cases) in a large population of pre-schoolers with ASD referred to a tertiary care University Hospital.MethodsWe retrospectively collected data about 382 children (mean age: 46.97 ± 13.55 months; age-range: 18-72 months) consecutively diagnosed as ASD (according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th edition criteria) over the period 2010–2013, and who performed a serological CD screening.ResultsThe overall CD prevalence was 2.62%, which is statistically significant higher to that reported in the Italian paediatric population (p = 0.0246). Half of these children had no symptoms or risk factors related to CD when they performed the serological screening.ConclusionsIf replicated, these data suggest the importance of regular screening for CD in young patients with ASD, and are of relevance for clinical and public health.

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The influence of arousal on visual attention was examined in 6.5‐month‐old infants (N = 42) in the context of a visual search task. Phasic increases in arousal were induced with brief sounds and measured with pupil dilation. Evidence was found for an inverted U‐shaped relation between pupil dilation amplitude and visual orienting, with highest likelihood of a target fixation at intermediate levels of arousal. Effects were similar for facial stimuli and simple objects. Together, these results contribute to our understanding of the relation between arousal and attention in infancy. The study also demonstrates that infants have a bias to orient to human eyes, even when presented in isolation.