Unraveling the developmental dynamics of visual exploration of social interactions in autism. Summary: Atypical display of social gaze is present from the beginning in young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, studies characterizing the developmental dynamics behind this are scarce. Here we use a data-driven method to delineate developmental change in visual exploration of social interaction during the childhood years in autism. Longitudinal eye-tracking data were acquired as children with ASD and their typically developing (TD) peers freely explored a short cartoon film. We found divergent moment-to-moment looking patterns in children with ASD compared to their TD peers. This divergence was particularly evident in sequences showing social interactions between characters and even more so in children with lower functional and developmental levels. The basic visual properties of the animated scene did not take into account the enhanced divergence. During the childhood years, these differences increased dramatically until they became more idiosyncratic. These findings suggest that social care should focus on the early stages of clinical treatments. |
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As they grow, children increasingly focus their attention on social elements in their environment, such as faces or social interactions. However, children with autism are often more interested in non-social stimuli , such as textures or geometric shapes. By tracking where children look while watching a cartoon, a team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has revealed that attention in autistic children does not follow the same developmental trajectory as that of typically developing children.
Instead, everyone gradually develops their own unique attention preferences. These results, published in eLife , argue in favor of early interventions aimed at improving social care, which could help guide autistic children towards developmental courses more similar to those of their peers, paving the way for personalized support and individualized.
From birth, babies are endowed with innate abilities that are crucial for their survival and adaptation. Among these abilities is a complex system of attention, finely tuned to detect the presence of others. Thus, from the beginning of their lives, newborns show a fascination with faces and face-like configurations, especially those that move. This preference for movement early in life is vital to development as it serves as the primary driver of exploration and interaction with the environment and ultimately lays the foundation for more complex social interactions.
However, this fundamental and widely shared social care can be affected in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This highly diverse neurodevelopmental condition is characterized by repetitive behaviors and specific interests accompanied by significant challenges in communication and social interactions.
Visual record
Are these social challenges expressed in the same way in all children with ASD? Do they vary according to the intensity of the disorder and/or age? Using an eye-tracking device that records eye movements in real time, a UNIGE team analyzed the visual preferences of 166 children with ASD and 51 typically developing (TD) children while they freely watched a short cartoon. The participants, all children for sample homogeneity, ranged in age from two to seven years, and were tested repeatedly as they developed.
’’Each child watched a three-minute cartoon showing a donkey in various social situations, without specific instructions. "This is not a cartoon designed especially for our study, but rather one that is very popular among children in this age group," explains Nada Kojovic, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at the UNIGE Faculty of Medicine. and first author of the study.
Desynchronized attention in ASD
Typically developing children are observed to focus their attention on the social interactions between characters and, as they grow, increasingly look at the same social elements in a scene. This "synchronization" phenomenon observed in typically developing children is absent in children with ASD. The latter show interest in other types of stimuli, such as objects or certain irregularities in the cartoon setting, and over time each child with ASD develops their own unique visual preferences.
’’It is likely that we can identify subgroups with common preferences among children with ASD, but there is no real synchronization of attention throughout their development, unlike what is observed in children with TD. "This is the first time that a study highlights this developmental phenomenon," says Daphné Bavelier, senior lecturer in the Psychology Section of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at UNIGE and co-author of the study.
The researchers also observed that autistic children whose gaze was more similar to that of typically developing children function better in everyday life and have better cognitive skills. And, more importantly, the way a child views a social scene, like the cartoon used here, can be used to predict future social difficulties.
In favor of early intervention
’’These findings show how important it is that therapeutic interventions target social care at a very early stage in children with ASD, especially those with greater developmental delay. In fact, this work shows that if autistic children do not show interest in social interactions from the beginning, they will become increasingly disinterested in them," explains Marie Schaer, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the UNIGE Faculty of Medicine, who led this study.
In the future, the UNIGE research team plans to apply their eye-tracking method to evaluate children who have benefited from a behavioral intervention known as the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM). This intensive behavioral intervention, developed in the United States, is designed to improve communication skills in young autistic children through playful interactions. Since 2012, more than one hundred autistic children under three years of age have benefited from this method in Geneva, with encouraging results. The researchers hope that their innovative eye-tracking technique will shed light on how this behavioral intervention contributes to the progress of children with ASD, providing a unique tool to improve strategies to support their development.
