Department of Psychiatry, Yale Child Study Center, New Haven, Connecticut.
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, California.
Autism Res. 2019 Mar;12(3):445-457. doi: 10.1002/aur.2060. Epub 2019 Jan 10.
Diminished attention to socially relevant information appears to be an early emerging risk factor associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, inconsistencies across studies suggest that atypicalities in visual social attention in infants at high-risk for ASD during the first postnatal year may be subtle and more apparent under certain contexts. Here we explore factors that may moderate developmental trajectories in attention to faces, including the social complexity of the dynamic visual stimuli used to measure visual social attention and the early social environment of the infant as indexed by parental affectedness of ASD-related traits. Across infants at both high (HR) and low risk for ASD, attention to faces increased during the first postnatal year, with overall greater attention being allocated to schematic faces in the simpler video stimulus. Moreover, greater parental affectedness of ASD-related traits was associated with reduced developmental gains in attention to faces. For HR infants, greater attention to faces was positively associated with social communicative competence, including better joint attention skills and lower social impairments. Altogether, our findings highlight the importance of considering developmental level when selecting stimuli to longitudinally examine visual social attention, and the clinical relevance of including measures of infant's social environment in understanding early markers of ASD risk. Autism Res 2019, 12: 445-457 © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Attention to faces is an important means for infants to learn about the social world. The complexity of the social scene and an infant's early social environment both affect the amount of time infants at high- and low-risk for ASD look at faces during the first postnatal year. For infants at high-risk for ASD, greater attention to faces was associated with better social skills. Understanding an infant's social environment may have a positive impact on social communicative development.
对与社交相关的信息关注度下降似乎是与自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）相关的早期出现的风险因素。然而，研究结果的不一致表明，在生命的第一年，高风险自闭症婴儿的视觉社交注意力可能存在细微的、在特定环境下更明显的异常。在这里，我们探讨了可能调节注意力发展轨迹的因素，包括用于测量视觉社交注意力的动态视觉刺激的社会复杂性，以及婴儿早期社会环境，即自闭症相关特征的父母受影响程度。在高风险（HR）和低风险自闭症婴儿中，对人脸的注意力在第一年中都有所增加，在更简单的视频刺激中，对示意图人脸的注意力总体上更大。此外，自闭症相关特征的父母受影响程度越大，对人脸的注意力发展增益就越小。对于 HR 婴儿，对人脸的关注度越高，与社会交际能力的相关性越强，包括更好的共同注意力技能和更低的社交障碍。总之，我们的研究结果强调了在选择用于纵向检查视觉社交注意力的刺激时考虑发展水平的重要性，以及在理解自闭症风险的早期标志物时纳入婴儿社会环境测量的临床相关性。自闭症研究 2019 年，12：445-457 © 2019 自闭症国际研究协会，威利期刊，公司。概述：对人脸的关注是婴儿了解社会世界的重要方式。社会场景的复杂性和婴儿的早期社会环境都会影响高风险和低风险自闭症婴儿在生命的第一年中看人脸的时间。对于高风险自闭症婴儿，对人脸的关注度越高，与社会技能的相关性越强。了解婴儿的社会环境可能对社会交际发展产生积极影响。
