Eye movements as a possible early marker for Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Roberta Fadda;Giuseppe Doneddu;Noemi Limbardi;Sara Congiu

2022-01-01

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Abstract

Besides the well-known reduced a!ention to human faces and eyes, the physical properties of the eye movements in infancy could be considered signi$cant red &ags for a possible diagnosis of ASD. Here we present an eye-tracking study in which we demonstrated higher levels of dispersion in the eye movements of preschool children with ASD compared to controls. Also, since research about early social abilities in infants may inform the development of new paradigms to detect individuals with ASD at an early age, we explored gaze following in preschool children with ASD compared to controls with an eye-tracking paradigm. In line with previous research, the results indicated intact gaze following in children with ASD. However, in response to a manipulation of the visual stimuli in which all the content of the image was hidden behind a blank barrier except for the face of a protagonist, we discovered that the eye movements of the participants with ASD jumped persistently from one point to another of the barrier. "is is a rather atypical visual behavior since the human eyes tend to avoid focusing on a blank background. Our results point to the need to include eye-tracking measures for an early diagnosis of ASD.