Context-Specific Dyadic Attention Vulnerabilities During the First Year in Infants Later Developing Autism Spectrum Disorder

Macari, Suzanne; Milgramm, Anna; Reed, Jessa; Shic, Frederick; Powell, Kelly; Macris, Deanna M.; Chawarska, Katarzyna

doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2019.12.012

Cited by 37 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…Selective attention to faces in infancy and early childhood supports a broad array of social and communicative skills, including the development of joint attention (Mundy & Newell, 2007), language (Teinonen et al, 2008; Tsang et al, 2018), and emotion processing (Amso et al, 2010; Peltola et al, 2008), and is already fundamentally affected in individuals with ASD during the prodromal (Chawarska et al, 2013; Jones et al, 2016; Macari et al, 2021; Shic et al, 2014) and early syndromal stages of the disorder (Chawarska et al, 2012; Shic, Wang, et al, 2020). Attention to faces is particularly diminished in dynamic social contexts involving the presence of speech and eye contact (Chawarska et al, 2012; Shic, Wang, Macari, & Chawarska, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Puppets facilitate attention to social cues in children with ASD

et al. 2021

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Diminished visual attention to faces of social partners represents one of the early characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here we examine if the introduction of puppets as social partners alters attention to speakers' faces in young children with ASD and typically developing (TD) controls. Children with ASD (N = 37; Mage = 49.44 months) and TD (N = 27; Mage = 40.66 months) viewed a video depicting a puppet and a human engaged in a conversation. Dwell time on these faces was analyzed as a function of group and speaker's identity. Unlike TD controls, the ASD group exhibited limited visual attention to and chance‐level visual preference for the human speaker. However, attention to and preference for the puppet speaker's face was greater than chance and comparable across the two groups. While there was a strong association between low human speaker preference and high autism severity, no association with autism severity was found for puppet speaker preference. Unlike humans, expressive and verbal puppets attracted the attention of children with ASD at levels comparable to that of TD controls. Considering that puppets can engage in reciprocal interactions and deliver simplified, salient social‐communicative cues, they may facilitate therapeutic efforts in children with ASD. Lay Summary While studies have shown support for therapeutic uses of robots with children with autism, other similar agents such as puppets remain to be explored. When shown a video of a conversation between a puppet and a person, young children with ASD paid as much attention to the puppet's face as typically‐developing (TD) children. Since puppets can engage in back‐and‐forth interactions and model social interactions and communication, they may play a promising role in therapeutic efforts for young children with ASD.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Puppets facilitate attention to social cues in children with ASD

et al. 2021

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“…To disambiguate the relationships between the two dimensions in ASD, it would be best to model these dimensions prospectively from infancy into toddlerhood. There is already evidence that infants later diagnosed with ASD exhibit lower attention to novel interactive partners [Macari et al, 2020; Ozonoff et al, 2010] and may display greater physiological dysregulation when interacting with strangers [McCormick et al, 2018], though their developmental dynamics and interactions remain to be examined. Improving our understanding of how these vulnerabilities interact in infancy and contribute to the phenotypes observed in newly diagnosed toddlers may inform about novel treatment targets and strategies that could be implemented during the presymptomatic phase of the disorder in populations at heightened risk for ASD [Chawarska & Volkmar, 2020].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attend Less, Fear More: Elevated Distress to Social Threat in Toddlers With Autism Spectrum Disorder

2020

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Differential emotional reactivity to social and nonsocial stimuli has been hypothesized but rarely examined empirically in ASD despite its potential importance for development of social motivation, cognition, and comorbid psychopathology. This study examined emotional reactivity, regulation, and attention to social and nonsocial threat in toddlers with ASD (n = 42, Mage: 22 months) and typically developing (TD) toddlers (n = 22, Mage: 23 months), and their mutual associations with autism symptom severity. Participants were exposed to social (stranger), nonsocial (mechanical objects), and ambiguous (masks) threats, and their intensity of distress (iDistress), attention to threat (Attention), and presence of emotion regulation (ER) strategies were measured. Autism symptom severity was quantified using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule‐2. In response to social threat, toddlers with ASD exhibited elevated iDistress (P < 0.038) but lower Attention (P < 0.002) and a wider variety of ER strategies (P < 0.040) compared to TD controls, though their ER strategies were less likely to be social. However, nonsocial and ambiguous threat elicited lower iDistress in ASD than in TD toddlers (P = 0.012 and P = 0.034, respectively), but comparable Attention and ER strategy use. Autism severity was not associated with iDistress. The study demonstrates elevated emotional salience but diminished attentional salience of social threat in ASD. A failure to attend adequately to social threats may restrict opportunities to appraise their threat value and engender often observed in ASD negative emotional responses to novel social situations. Early atypical emotional reactivity may independently contribute to the shaping of complex autism phenotypes and may be linked with later emerging affective and behavioral symptoms. Lay Summary Compared to typically developing toddlers, toddlers with ASD show diminished attention yet enhanced distress in response to social threat. Poor attention to potential social threat may limit opportunities to assess its threat value and thus contribute to often observed negative emotional responses to novel social situations. Identifying the precursors of atypical emotional reactivity in infancy and its links with later psychopathology will inform about novel treatment targets and mechanisms of change in the early stages of ASD. Autism Res 2021, 14: 1025–1036. © 2020 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, LLC

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“…Several studies with infants suggest that innate or earlyemerging attentional biases for faces or complex social scenes may be intact within the first months of life in infants who later develop ASD (30,31) in line with negative results from behavioral studies in early infancy (32).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Social Attention Deficits in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Task Dependence of Objects vs. Faces Observation Bias

et al. 2021

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Social attention deficits represent a central impairment of patients suffering from autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but the nature of such deficits remains controversial. We compared visual attention regarding social (faces) vs. non-social stimuli (objects), in an ecological diagnostic context, in 46 children and adolescents divided in two groups: ASD (N = 23) and typical neurodevelopment (TD) (N = 23), matched for chronological age and intellectual performance. Eye-tracking measures of visual scanning, while exploring and describing scenes from three different tasks from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), were analyzed: “Description of a Picture,” “Cartoons,” and “Telling a Story from a Book.” Our analyses revealed a three-way interaction between Group, Task, and Social vs. Object Stimuli. We found a striking main effect of group and a task dependence of attentional allocation: while the TD attended first and longer to faces, ASD participants became similar to TD when they were asked to look at pictures while telling a story. Our results suggest that social attention allocation is task dependent, raising the question whether spontaneous attention deficits can be rescued by guiding goal-directed actions.

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Context-Specific Dyadic Attention Vulnerabilities During the First Year in Infants Later Developing Autism Spectrum Disorder

Cited by 37 publications

References 73 publications

Puppets facilitate attention to social cues in children with ASD

Puppets facilitate attention to social cues in children with ASD

Attend Less, Fear More: Elevated Distress to Social Threat in Toddlers With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Social Attention Deficits in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Task Dependence of Objects vs. Faces Observation Bias

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