BACKGROUND: Recent studies of infant siblings of children diagnosed with autism have allowed for a prospective approach to examine the emergence of symptoms and revealed behavioral differences in the broader autism phenotype within the early years. In the current study we focused on a set of functions associated with visual attention, previously reported to be atypical in autism. METHOD: We compared performance of a group of 9-10-month-old infant siblings of children with autism to a control group with no family history of autism on the 'gap-overlap task', which measures the cost of disengaging from a central stimulus in order to fixate a peripheral one. Two measures were derived on the basis of infants' saccadic reaction times. The first is the Disengagement effect, which measures the efficiency of disengaging from a central stimulus to orient to a peripheral one. The second was a Facilitation effect, which arises when the infant is cued by a temporal gap preceding the onset of the peripheral stimulus, and would orient faster after its onset. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Infant siblings of children with autism showed longer Disengagement latencies as well as less Facilitation relative to the control group. The findings are discussed in relation to how differences in visual attention may relate to characteristics observed in autism and the broader phenotype.
BACKGROUND: Recent studies of infant siblings of children diagnosed with autism have allowed for a prospective approach to examine the emergence of symptoms and revealed behavioral differences in the broader autism phenotype within the early years. In the current study we focused on a set of functions associated with visual attention, previously reported to be atypical in autism. METHOD: We compared performance of a group of 9-10-month-old infant siblings of children with autism to a control group with no family history of autism on the 'gap-overlap task', which measures the cost of disengaging from a central stimulus in order to fixate a peripheral one. Two measures were derived on the basis of infants' saccadic reaction times. The first is the Disengagement effect, which measures the efficiency of disengaging from a central stimulus to orient to a peripheral one. The second was a Facilitation effect, which arises when the infant is cued by a temporal gap preceding the onset of the peripheral stimulus, and would orient faster after its onset. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Infant siblings of children with autism showed longer Disengagement latencies as well as less Facilitation relative to the control group. The findings are discussed in relation to how differences in visual attention may relate to characteristics observed in autism and the broader phenotype.
Authors: P Bolton; H Macdonald; A Pickles; P Rios; S Goode; M Crowson; A Bailey; M Rutter Journal: J Child Psychol Psychiatry Date: 1994-07 Impact factor: 8.982
Authors: Geraldine Dawson; Sara Webb; Gerard D Schellenberg; Stephen Dager; Seth Friedman; Elizabeth Aylward; Todd Richards Journal: Dev Psychopathol Date: 2002
Authors: Mayada Elsabbagh; Agnes Volein; Gergely Csibra; Karla Holmboe; Holly Garwood; Leslie Tucker; Sanya Krljes; Simon Baron-Cohen; Patrick Bolton; Tony Charman; Gillian Baird; Mark H Johnson Journal: Biol Psychiatry Date: 2009-01-01 Impact factor: 13.382
Authors: Jonathan Green; Ming Wai Wan; Jeanne Guiraud; Samina Holsgrove; Janet McNally; Vicky Slonims; Mayada Elsabbagh; Tony Charman; Andrew Pickles; Mark Johnson Journal: J Autism Dev Disord Date: 2013-11