Attention and word learning in autistic, language delayed and typically developing children

Abstract

Previous work has demonstrated that patterns of social attention hold predictive value for language development in typically developing infants. The goal of this research was to explore how patterns of attention in autistic, language delayed, and typically developing children relate to early word learning and language abilities. We tracked patterns of eye movements to faces and objects while children watched videos of a woman teaching them a series of new words. Subsequent test trials measured participants‘ recognition of these novel word-object pairings. Results indicated that greater attention to the speaker‘s mouth was related to higher scores on standardized measures of language development for autistic and typically developing children (but not for language delayed children). This effect was mediated by age for typically developing, but not autistic children. When effects of age were controlled for, attention to the mouth among language delayed participants was negatively correlated with standardized measures of language learning. Attention to the speaker‘s mouth and eyes while she was teaching the new words was also predictive of faster recognition of those words among autistic children. These results suggest that language delays among children with autism may be driven in part by aberrant social attention, and that the mechanisms underlying these delays may differ from those in language delayed participants without autism.

Comparing Automatic Eye Tracking and Manual Gaze Coding Methods in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…This is concerning, given that individuals with ASD often examine visual stimuli while adopting nonstandard head orientations, such as turning their heads and peering out of the corners of their eyes. High‐quality calibration increases accuracy, but it can be difficult to achieve [Aslin & McMurray, ; Nyström et al, ; Schlegelmilch & Wertz, ; Tenenbaum, Amso, Abar, & Sheinkopf, ]. Some children may be unable to complete calibration [Dalrymple et al, ], and time spent on calibration (and re‐calibration) decreases the likelihood that children will remain engaged in the remainder of the task [Aslin & McMurray, ].…”

“…One experimental design that can be used with either automatic eye-tracking or manual gaze coding is a "2-large-AOI" design, in which visual stimuli (e.g., objects, faces) are presented simultaneously on the left and right sides of the screen [Fernald et al, 2008;Tek, Jaffery, Fein, & Naigles, 2008;Unruh et al, 2016]. Because of its flexibility, the 2-large-AOI design has been used to study constructs as diverse as memory [Oakes, Kovack-lesh, & Horst, 2010], spoken language comprehension [Brock, Norbury, Einav, & Nation, 2008;Goodwin, Fein, & Naigles, 2012], visual preferences [Pierce, Conant, Hazin, Stoner, & Desmond, 2011;Pierce et al, 2016], and social orienting [Unruh et al, 2016].…”

The Use of Eye Tracking as a Biomarker of Treatment Outcome in a Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial for Young Children with Autism

“…Research suggests that attention allocation during face scanning is a context‐dependent developmental process and much attention has been given to the amount of time spent looking to the mouth and eyes [Chawarska, Macari, & Shic, ; Pelphrey et al, ; Shic, Macari, & Chawarska, ; Speer, Cook, McMahon, & Clark, ; Tenenbaum, Shah, Sobel, Malle, & Morgan, ]. Increased mouth looking is observed in TD infants and toddlers during active language learning [Kubicek et al, ; Lewkowicz & Hansen‐Tift, ; Tenenbaum, Amso, Abar, & Sheinkopf, ], while increased eye looking is found in individuals after 12 months of age, presumably due to language mastery and an interest in extracting social information [Lewkowicz & Hansen‐Tift, ]. In ASD, however, mouth looking during static face scanning has been found to be attenuated compared to TD individuals, both in young children and adults, and increased mouth looking is associated with increased facial encoding [Chawarska & Shic, ; Pelphrey et al, ].…”

“…It has been suggested that decreased mouth‐looking is possibly due to decreased attention and responsivity to speech and language [Chawarska & Shic, ], yet this hypothesis has not been tested directly. In an extension of this work, the current study chose to examine mouth‐to‐eyes ratio during presentation of static faces as a possible measure of clinical heterogeneity within ASD, similar to what has been done with dynamic faces [Norbury et al, ; Tenenbaum et al, ; Tenenbaum, Sobel, Sheinkopf, Malle, & Morgan, ].…”

An Open Conversation on Using Eye-Gaze Methods in Studies of Neurodevelopmental Disorders

“…Some participants may not be able to complete calibration and therefore may need to be excluded from the analyses (e.g., Tenenbaum, Amso, Abar, & Sheinkopf, 2014). Calibration errors may necessitate off-line corrections with an adjustment algorithm (Frank, Vul, & Saxe, 2012), and the quality of calibration can have implications for data quality (Nyström et al, 2013).…”