Development of attention from birth to 5 months in infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder

Bradshaw, Jessica; Klin, Ami; Evans, Lindsey M.; Klaiman, Cheryl; Saulnier, Celine A.

doi:10.1017/s0954579419000233

Cited by 33 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Social attention deficits at different ages may also vary along the developmental trajectory of ASD. Finally, there may be a distinction between diagnostic and phenotypic biomarkers, such that some tasks are more sensitive to the potentially binary diagnostic classification of ASD, whereas other tasks are more sensitive to the phenotypic heterogeneity observed within ASD [ 9 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the phenotypic heterogeneity in ASD, eye tracking might be an objective way to assess social attention [ 2 ] wherein social attention differences have been noted in infant siblings of children with ASD, as well as toddlers, children, and adults with ASD, compared to individuals without ASD [ 3 – 8 ]. Current evidence suggests it may be possible to predict social-communicative outcomes and risk for ASD based on early visual attention to social stimuli, highlighting social attention as a potential predictive biomarker for ASD [ 9 – 16 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social attention to activities in children and adults with autism spectrum disorder: effects of context and age

et al. 2020

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Background Diminished visual monitoring of faces and activities of others is an early feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It is uncertain whether deficits in activity monitoring, identified using a homogeneous set of stimuli, persist throughout the lifespan in ASD, and thus, whether they could serve as a biological indicator (“biomarker”) of ASD. We investigated differences in visual attention during activity monitoring in children and adult participants with autism compared to a control group of participants without autism. Methods Eye movements of participants with autism (n = 122; mean age [SD] = 14.5 [8.0] years) and typically developing (TD) controls (n = 40, age = 16.4 [13.3] years) were recorded while they viewed a series of videos depicting two female actors conversing while interacting with their hands over a shared task. Actors either continuously focused their gaze on each other’s face (mutual gaze) or on the shared activity area (shared focus). Mean percentage looking time was computed for the activity area, actors’ heads, and their bodies. Results Compared to TD participants, participants with ASD looked longer at the activity area (mean % looking time: 58.5% vs. 53.8%, p < 0.005) but less at the heads (15.2% vs. 23.7%, p < 0.0001). Additionally, within-group differences in looking time were observed between the mutual gaze and shared focus conditions in both participants without ASD (activity: Δ = − 6.4%, p < 0.004; heads: Δ = + 3.5%, p < 0.02) and participants with ASD (bodies: Δ = + 1.6%, p < 0.002). Limitations The TD participants were not as well characterized as the participants with ASD. Inclusion criteria regarding the cognitive ability [intelligence quotient (IQ) > 60] limited the ability to include individuals with substantial intellectual disability. Conclusions Differences in attention to faces could constitute a feature discriminative between individuals with and without ASD across the lifespan, whereas between-group differences in looking at activities may shift with development. These findings may have applications in the search for underlying biological indicators specific to ASD. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02668991.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social attention to activities in children and adults with autism spectrum disorder: effects of context and age

et al. 2020

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“…Interestingly, previous research including HR-Sibs suggests that atypically shorter spontaneous fixations to nonsocial stimuli may already be present at 6–9 months (Wass et al, 2015), whereas longer latencies to disengage attention from similar stimuli become more apparent at approximately 10–14 months of age (Elison et al, 2013; Elsabbagh et al, 2013). Recent research has also suggested that disrupted patterns of visual attention to social stimuli (e.g., human faces or social scenes) may already be present by 6 months of life, perhaps even earlier (Bradshaw et al, 2020). We take these previous findings, and similar others (Chawarska, Macari, & Shic, 2013; Sacrey, Bryson, & Zwaigenbaum, 2013), to suggest that supporting the development of self-regulated attention and associated brain networks (e.g., reorienting system; (Corbetta, Patel, & Shulman, 2008) in very young children with ASD or early emerging features of ASD is a key intervention target.…”

Section: Self-regulated Attention As a Therapeutic Target And Mechanimentioning

confidence: 99%

Social origins of self-regulated attention during infancy and their disruption in autism spectrum disorder: Implications for early intervention

Gaffrey

Markert

2020

Dev Psychopathol

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To understand the complex relationships between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other frequently comorbid conditions, a growing number of studies have investigated the emergence of ASD during infancy. This research has suggested that symptoms of ASD and highly related comorbid conditions emerge from complex interactions between neurodevelopmental vulnerabilities and early environments, indicating that developing treatments to prevent ASD is highly challenging. However, it also suggests that attenuating the negative effects of ASD on future development once identified is possible. The present paper builds on this by conceptualizing developmental delays in nonsocial skills as the potential product of altered caregiver–infant interactions following the emergence of ASD during infancy. And, following emerging findings from caregiver–infant dyadic head-mounted eye-tracking (D-ET) research, it also suggests that a multiple pathway model of joint attention can provide mechanistic insights into how ASD alters the ability of caregiver and infant to create a context for infant learning. The potential for this view to inform early intervention is further discussed and illustrated through D-ET data collected prior to and following a brief, parent-mediated intervention for infant ASD. While promising, further research informing how a multiple pathway model of joint attention can inform ASD early intervention is needed.

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“…By three months of age, social gaze is the primary modality of coordinated interactions, occurring 30–50% of the time in low risk infants. But attention to eyes declines between 2 and 6 months in infants who later develop ASD (Jones and Klin, 2013), and high-risk siblings perform lower on visual attention tasks at 2 and 3 months of age compared to low-risk infants (Bradshaw et al, 2019).…”

Section: The First 100 Days Post-term: Window Of Critically Injury-sementioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-emptive Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorder: Theoretical Foundations and Clinical Translation

Douglas

2019

Front. Integr. Neurosci.

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Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are an emergent public health problem, placing significant burden upon the individual, family and health system. ASD are polygenetic spectrum disorders of neural connectome development, in which one or more feedback loops amplify small genetic, structural, or functional variations in the very early development of motor and sensory-motor pathways. These perturbations trigger a ‘butterfly effect’ of unpredictable cascades of structural and functional imbalances in the global neuronal workspace, resulting in atypical behaviors, social communication, and cognition long-term. The first 100 days post-term are critically neuroplastic and comprise an injury-sensitive developmental window, characterized by a neural biomarker, the persistence of the cortical subplate, and a behavioral biomarker, the crying diathesis. By the time potential diagnostic signs are identified, from 6 months of age, ASD neuropathy is already entrenched. The International Society for Autism Research Special Interest Group has called for pre-emptive intervention, based upon rigorous theoretical frames, and real world translation and evaluation. This paper responds to that call. It synthesizes heterogenous evidence concerning ASD etiologies from both psychosocial and biological research literatures with complexity science and evolutionary biology, to propose a theoretical framework for pre-emptive intervention. This paper hypothesizes that environmental factors resulting from a mismatch between environment of evolutionary adaptedness and culture initiate or perpetuate early motor and sensory-motor lesions, triggering a butterfly effect of multi-directional cascades of atypical developmental in the complex adaptive system of the parent and ASD-susceptible infant. Chronic sympathetic nervous system/hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis hyperarousal and disrupted parent-infant biobehavioral synchrony are the key biologic and behavioral mechanisms perpetuating these atypical developmental cascades. A clinical translation of this evidence is proposed, for application antenatally and in the first 6 months of life, as pre-emptive intervention for ASD.

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Development of attention from birth to 5 months in infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder

Cited by 33 publications

References 66 publications

Social attention to activities in children and adults with autism spectrum disorder: effects of context and age

Social attention to activities in children and adults with autism spectrum disorder: effects of context and age

Social origins of self-regulated attention during infancy and their disruption in autism spectrum disorder: Implications for early intervention

Pre-emptive Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorder: Theoretical Foundations and Clinical Translation

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