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Updated: Oct 25, 2025

Eye Tracking Young Children with Autism
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Eye Tracking Young Children with Autism

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Abnormal visual attention to simple social stimuli in 4-month-old infants at high risk for Autism

Elisa Di Giorgio1, Orsola Rosa-Salva2, Elisa Frasnelli3

  • 1Dipartimento Di Psicologia Dello Sviluppo E Della Socializzazione, Università Degli Studi Di Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131, Padova, PD, Italy. elisa.digiorgio@unipd.it.

Scientific Reports
|August 5, 2021
PubMed

Insights

Infants at high risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) showed altered visual attention to direct eye-gaze at 4 months. This suggests potential delays in early social attention development in high-risk infants.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Pediatrics

Background:

  • Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by social impairments, but its early pathogenesis remains unclear.
  • Atypical visual attention to social stimuli is a potential early marker for ASD's social and communicative deficits.
  • Early visual attention deficits in ASD may originate at birth or emerge around 2-3 months of age.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the origins of early visual attention disturbances in infants at high risk (HR) for ASD.
  • To compare social attention patterns in 4-month-old HR infants versus low-risk (LR) infants.
  • To provide evidence for hypotheses regarding early social visual attention impairments in infants at risk for ASD.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized four visual preference tasks to assess social attention.
  • Compared 4-month-old HR infants with age-matched LR infants.
  • Analyzed visual attention differences based on direct versus adverted eye-gaze stimuli.

Main Results:

  • HR infants exhibited a significant visual preference for direct eye-gaze stimuli compared to LR infants.
  • This difference in preference for direct eye-gaze suggests a potential developmental delay in HR infants.
  • No other significant differences in visual attention were observed between the HR and LR groups.

Conclusions:

  • Early visual attention to direct eye-gaze may be delayed in infants at high risk for ASD.
  • Findings support the hypothesis that atypical visual attention develops during infancy.
  • Further research is needed to understand the trajectory of social attention deficits in infants at risk for ASD.

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