Development of social and communicative abilities among typically developing children and children with autism
We have recently shown how children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) visually explore social stimuli. The children with mostly social handicap (for example impaired eye contact) have a different exploration pattern as compared to those with mainly communicative problems (for example delayed language development and minor ability to understand gestures).
The purpose of the present project is to find relations between symptoms and gaze behavior. First, we will relate social and communicative abilities with control of gaze in both ASD and typically developing (TD) children. Secondly, a theoretical frame work will be developed that can handle the social and communicative aspects of development and how they interact. Recent neurobiological research has shown that social and communicative abilities are processed by brain systems that are activated both when an individual expresses emotions or actions and when they see other people do so. It has been suggested that ASD children may have a sub optimal functioning of this neural system. We will use a method for measuring gaze that is based on cornea refection (the TOBII). It is a suitable method for children with ASD as nothing needs to be applied on the child. It has been used in a number of studies of infants and preschool children. Measurements will be performed when ASD and TP children are looking at movies with varying social information: fixation of faces and especially emotional faces, perception of gaze direction in other people, gaze direction during conversations, and other people´s actions. One possible application of the results is that training of attention could be made more specific to the problems of different groups of children with ASD.
Development of social and communicative abilities in typically developed children and children with autism. (P09-0933:1-E)
The first purpose of the present project was to investigate how social and communicative abilities are reflected in the looking behavior of typically developing children and how these behaviors disturbed in children with autism. Gaze plays a very important role in all social activities. By looking at other people’s faces one gets information about their emotions, intentions, and direction of attention. We use gaze to catch other people’s attention and to point out important objects and events in the surrounding. Gaze is also a very important factor in the communicative process. Such information is not only conveyed through speech but also through gestures and pointing.
The second purpose was to develop a theoretical framework that can handle social as well as communicative development and their relationship with the motor impairments typical for children with autism. For instance, neurobiological research has shown that social and communicative abilities are related to systems in the brain that are activated when the subject expresses emotions or performs actions as well as when he or she observes others do it.
There are three major findings of the project.
1. Looking is different in Children with ASD from typical developing ones. Preschool children with ASD don’t seem to be attracted by the same features that attract the gaze of typically developing children. The reason may either be that children with ASD cannot perceive these features or that they find them non-salient or unimportant In our research we have for instance found that children with ASD, in contrast to typical developing children, don’t look significantly at objects that are fixated by a seen model (Falck-Ytter et al 2012). The use of raised eyebrows as an ostensive cue to call the attention to the fixated object had an enhancing effect on typical developing children but not on children with ASD.
2. The monitoring of eye movements when children with autism observe a communicative exchange reveals a set of fixations that are very different from typical developing children. This has been shown by Falck-Ytter et al. (2013)
3. The motor system in children with autism is deficient in the sense that these children have difficulties in foreseeing future events and ability plan movements and movement sequences. This aspect of autism has not received sufficient attention in earlier studies and it is not included in DSM-IV diagnostics. Movement impairments, however, is a prominent problem in children with ASD. As stated by the Mirror Neuron hypothesis, action production and action understanding are intimately related. Both these functions rely on predictive models of the sensory consequences of actions and depend on connectivity between the parietal and pre-motor areas. Other distant connections in the brain are those over the Corpus Callosum and those connecting the parietal lobe with the Cerebellum (the upper trans-cerebellar loop). All these connections are weak in children with autism. This has important implications for how to conceive of and how to treat autism.
These findings suggest that the following research questions should be studied in the future. First, as autism is primarily an attentional problem, it will affect subjects’ looking patterns and this will be most profound in social situations. The results indicate that children with autism look differently at events than do typically developing children. In particular, social events are less interesting to children with autism. We have no evidence that children with autism find a social situation frightening, just that they do not seem to be attracted by it. For instance, in a scene where a subject looks at an object, the typical developing children will tend to look at the same object, but the children with autism will not. Another problem that needs to be studied more in the future is the way motor coordination is affected by autism. The solutions of motor problems that depend on predictive control seem to be impaired in children with ASD.
The project has been associated with the COST project of European Science Foundation. We have also participated in the conferences by INSAR (International Society for Autism Research). Apart from connections with the scientific community, several popular lectures have been delivered. One of the conferences was ”neuropsykiatriska tillstånd i ett utvecklingsperspektiv” where I talked about ”Motor impairments in children with ASD”.
The two most important publications of the project are:
1. Von Hofsten, C. & Rosander, K. (2012) Perception-Action in children with ASD. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, dec.
This article is important because it points out the importance of motor problems in autism a gives a explanation for the relationship between the motor problems and the social and communicative problems in children with autism.
2. Falck-Ytter T., von Hofsten, C., Gillberg, C. & Fernell E. (2013) Visualization and analysis of eye-movement data from children with typical and a typical development. Journal of Autism and Developmental disorders, 10.1007/s10803-013-1776-
This article provides detailed information on the flow looking at a video in children with autism. It shows how the children with autism deviate from typical children.
The above two articles were published i open access. They are marked with an asterisk in the publication list.
The website is: www.babylab.se