Abstract
Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are impaired in visually disengaging attention in both social and non-social contexts. These impairments may, in subtler form, also affect the infant siblings of children with ASD (ASD-sibs). We investigated patterns of visual attention (gazing) in 6-month-old ASD-sibs (n = 17) and the siblings of typically developing children (COMP-sibs: n = 17) during the Face-to-Face/Still-Face Protocol (FFSF), in which parents are sequentially responsive, non-responsive, and responsive to their infants. Throughout the protocol, ASD-sibs shifted their gaze to and from their parents' faces less frequently than did COMP-sibs. The mean durations of ASD-sibs' gazes away from their parents' faces were longer than those of COMP-sibs. ASD-sibs and COMP-sibs did not differ in the mean durations of gazes at their parents' faces. In sum, ASD-sibs showed no deficits in visual interest to their parents' faces, but greater interest than COMP-sibs in non-face stimuli.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 473-485 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Autism |
Volume | 12 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2008 |
Keywords
- At risk
- Autism spectrum disorders
- Disengagement
- Early deficits
- Siblings
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Psychology(all)
- Developmental and Educational Psychology