de Klerk Carina C J M, Gliga Teodora, Charman Tony, Johnson Mark H
Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birbeck College, University of London, UK.
Dev Sci. 2014 Jul;17(4):596-611. doi: 10.1111/desc.12141. Epub 2013 Dec 7.
Face recognition difficulties are frequently documented in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). It has been hypothesized that these difficulties result from a reduced interest in faces early in life, leading to decreased cortical specialization and atypical development of the neural circuitry for face processing. However, a recent study by our lab demonstrated that infants at increased familial risk for ASD, irrespective of their diagnostic status at 3 years, exhibit a clear orienting response to faces. The present study was conducted as a follow-up on the same cohort to investigate how measures of early engagement with faces relate to face-processing abilities later in life. We also investigated whether face recognition difficulties are specifically related to an ASD diagnosis, or whether they are present at a higher rate in all those at familial risk. At 3 years we found a reduced ability to recognize unfamiliar faces in the high-risk group that was not specific to those children who received an ASD diagnosis, consistent with face recognition difficulties being an endophenotype of the disorder. Furthermore, we found that longer looking at faces at 7 months was associated with poorer performance on the face recognition task at 3 years in the high-risk group. These findings suggest that longer looking at faces in infants at risk for ASD might reflect early face-processing difficulties and predicts difficulties with recognizing faces later in life.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患儿存在面部识别困难的情况屡有记载。据推测，这些困难源于生命早期对面部兴趣的降低，导致面部处理神经回路的皮质特化减少和发育异常。然而，我们实验室最近的一项研究表明，患ASD家族风险增加的婴儿，无论其3岁时的诊断状况如何，都对面部表现出明显的定向反应。本研究作为对同一队列的后续研究，旨在调查早期对面部的关注程度与后期面部处理能力之间的关系。我们还调查了面部识别困难是否与ASD诊断有特定关联，或者在所有有家族风险的人群中其出现率是否更高。在3岁时，我们发现高危组中识别不熟悉面孔的能力下降，这并非特定于那些被诊断为ASD的儿童，这与面部识别困难是该疾病的一种内表型一致。此外，我们发现高危组中7个月大时对面部注视时间较长与3岁时面部识别任务的较差表现相关。这些发现表明，ASD风险婴儿对面部注视时间较长可能反映了早期面部处理困难，并预示着后期识别面孔的困难。
