A striking and characteristic feature of very young children with ASD is their reduced interest in people in their immediate environment: they frequently focus more on the toys and objects in the room and less on adults who are in close proximity. While the phenomenon of apparent heightened interest in objects in toddlers with ASD is not well understood, it has been documented as early as the first birthday. These early differences in attention in toddlers with ASD may be part of a developmental cascade that leads to a more intense focus on objects at the expense of attending to people. Such a preference for objects over people can interfere with opportunities for social learning and may also contribute to difficulties in the acquisition of language and problem solving skills. Indeed, a fundamental goal of behavioral therapy for children with ASD is to shift their attention away from objects and towards parents, teachers, and peers. The main goal of the current proposal is to elucidate the perceptual processes that serve to bias toddlers with ASD toward objects and drive their unusual exploratory behaviors. We will focus on two perceptual dimensions that in our previous work have been found particularly important in driving attention of toddlers with ASD: contrast and motion. We are taking a novel two-pronged approach, incorporating eye-tracking tasks with analogous behavioral tasks to examine the associations between visual preferences as exhibited in a context of eye-tracking experiments and attentional biases (preferences) observable during free play situations. The proposed study will address the following questions: (1) Are toddlers with ASD biased toward high-contrast stimuli? (2) Are certain kinds of motion such as rotational movement especially salient to toddlers with ASD? (3) Does the presence of perceptually salient distractors impede attention to social stimuli in toddlers with ASD? We plan to conduct these experiments with 18-24-month-old toddlers who are exhibiting signs of ASD. Targeting this group is critical from a clinical standpoint, as abnormalities in visual attention (e.g., unusual visual interests) constitute part of the diagnostic criteria for ASD, yet these difficulties often manifest at this age only in a limited form. Thus, designing more sensitive behavioral approaches to detect emerging abnormalities in this domain is vital. Through these experiments, we will elucidate the perceptual components of stimuli that attract toddlers'visual attention and effectively draw them away from social experiences that are critical to their development.

Public Health Relevance

The proposed experiments focus on visuo-perceptual abnormalities in the early stages of ASD, perhaps even prior to the manifestation of behavioral symptoms in this area, and thus advance our understanding of the processes and mechanisms underlying behavioral symptoms of the disorder. By shedding light on the mechanisms that lead to deficits in attention to social stimuli in everyday situations in young children with ASD, the project's findings will inform interventions that aim to minimize the cascading effects of such deficits over the first years of life. Furthermore, our findings could be highly consequential for the design of early diagnostic measures for high-risk infant sibling populations or infants with emerging but unclear symptoms of ASD.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Small Research Grants (R03)
Project #
1R03MH086732-01
Application #
7707119
Study Section
Child Psychopathology and Developmental Disabilities Study Section (CPDD)
Program Officer
Gilotty, Lisa
Project Start
2009-07-01
Project End
2011-06-30
Budget Start
2009-07-01
Budget End
2010-06-30
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2009
Total Cost
$82,750
Indirect Cost
Name
Yale University
Department
Psychiatry
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
043207562
City
New Haven
State
CT
Country
United States
Zip Code
06520
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Campbell, Daniel J; Shic, Frederick; Macari, Suzanne et al. (2014) Gaze response to dyadic bids at 2 years related to outcomes at 3 years in autism spectrum disorders: a subtyping analysis. J Autism Dev Disord 44:431-42
Shic, Frederick; Macari, Suzanne; Chawarska, Katarzyna (2014) Speech disturbs face scanning in 6-month-old infants who develop autism spectrum disorder. Biol Psychiatry 75:231-7
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Chawarska, Katarzyna; Macari, Suzanne; Shic, Frederick (2013) Decreased spontaneous attention to social scenes in 6-month-old infants later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. Biol Psychiatry 74:195-203
Chawarska, Katarzyna; Macari, Suzanne; Shic, Frederick (2012) Context modulates attention to social scenes in toddlers with autism. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 53:903-13