Contribution of social and information-processing factors to eye-gaze avoidance in fragile X syndrome.

The influence of social and information-processing demands on eye-gaze avoidance in individuals with fragile X syndrome, Down syndrome, or typical development were examined by manipulating those demands in a structured-language task. Participants with fragile X syndrome exhibited more gaze avoidance than did those in the comparison groups, but no group differences in avoidance were found between a social and nonsocial condition. Task difficulty affected gaze avoidance in the nonsocial but not in the social condition. In the nonsocial condition, the effect of task difficulty was less pronounced for the fragile X syndrome than comparison groups. Findings suggest that multimodal task demands rather than eye contact per se contribute to gaze avoidance in persons with fragile X syndrome.