Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comment
. 2014 Jun;18(6):272-3.
doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2014.02.006. Epub 2014 Mar 12.

When and how does autism begin?

Jennifer M D Yoon  1 , Athena Vouloumanos  2
Affiliations
Comment

When and how does autism begin?

Jennifer M D Yoon et al. Trends Cogn Sci. 2014 Jun.

Abstract

Jones and Klin recently found that the well-known decreased fixations to eyes in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are not present throughout infancy; instead a decline in eye fixations between 2 and 6 months predicts diagnosis. This decline is the earliest behavioral pattern linked to autism to date.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Developmental patterns of fixation to the eye region of faces. (A) Raw data for eye fixations across age in a typically developing (TD) group (blue). (B) Raw data for eye fixations across age in a group that develops autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (red). (C) Hierarchical linear model (HLM) summary of data with mean trend lines and 95% confidence intervals, with significant interaction between diagnosis and age (P=0.002). From Extended Data Figure 2 in [1].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

    1. Jones W, Klin A. Attention to eyes is present but in decline in 2–6-month-old infants later diagnosed with autism. Nature. 2013;504:427–431. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Senju A, Johnson MH. Atypical eye contact in autism: Models, mechanisms and development. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. 2009;33(8):1204–1214. - PubMed
    1. Gliga T, Csibra G. Seeing the face through the eyes: a developmental perspective on face expertise. Progress in Brain Research. 2007;164:323–339. - PubMed
    1. Elsabbagh M, Johnson MH. Getting answers from babies about autism. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2010;14(2):81–87. - PubMed
    1. Chevallier C, Kohls G, Troiani V, Brodkin ES, Schultz RT. The social motivation theory of autism. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2012;16(4):231–239. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources