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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2017 May;10(5):961-972.
doi: 10.1002/aur.1754. Epub 2017 Feb 28.

Parent-delivered early intervention in infants at risk for ASD: Effects on electrophysiological and habituation measures of social attention

Emily J H Jones  1 , Geraldine Dawson  2 , Jean Kelly  3   4 , Annette Estes  4   5 , Sara Jane Webb  6   7   8
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Parent-delivered early intervention in infants at risk for ASD: Effects on electrophysiological and habituation measures of social attention

Emily J H Jones et al. Autism Res. 2017 May.

Abstract

Prospective longitudinal studies of infants with older siblings with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have indicated that differences in the neurocognitive systems underlying social attention may emerge prior to the child meeting ASD diagnostic criteria. Thus, targeting social attention with early intervention might have the potential to alter developmental trajectories for infants at high risk for ASD. Electrophysiological and habituation measures of social attention were collected at 6, 12, and 18 months in a group of high-risk infant siblings of children with ASD (N = 33). Between 9 and 11 months of age, infant siblings received a parent-delivered intervention, promoting first relationships (PFR), (n = 19) or on-going assessment without intervention (n = 14). PFR has been previously shown to increase parental responsivity to infant social communicative cues and infant contingent responding. Compared to infants who only received assessment and monitoring, infants who received the intervention showed improvements in neurocognitive metrics of social attention, as reflected in a greater reduction in habituation times to face versus object stimuli between 6 and 12 months, maintained at 18 months; a greater increase in frontal EEG theta power between 6 and 12 months; and a more comparable P400 response to faces and objects at 12 months. The high-risk infants who received the intervention showed a pattern of responses that appeared closer to the normative responses of two groups of age-matched low-risk control participants. Though replication is necessary, these results suggest that early parent-mediated intervention has the potential to impact the brain systems underpinning social attention in infants at familial risk for ASD. Autism Res 2017, 10: 961-972. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Keywords: ASD; autism; high-risk; infant; neurocognitive; promoting first relationships; social attention.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest

Geraldine Dawson receives authorship royalties from Guilford Publications and Oxford University Press and is on the scientific advisory boards of Janssen Research and Development, Roche Pharmaceuticals, Akili, Inc., and Progenity, Inc., for which she receives travel reimbursement and honoraria.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Trial profile.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Habituation task and time to habituate to faces and objects. (A) Diagrammatic representation of the habituation task. (B) Total habituation times to faces (top) and objects (bottom). PFR = promoting first relationships; A+M = assessment and monitoring; Cross = cross-sectional; Long. = longitudinal.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Electroencephalography (EEG) social and non-social video task and theta power. (A) Infant in EEG net (top); screenshot from the stimuli (middle); and topography of EEG theta power to social minus nonsocial videos at 6 and 12 months in the normative cross-sectional control group (bottom, Jones et al., 2015). (B) Frontal theta power to the social (top) and nonsocial (bottom) video. PFR = promoting first relationships; A+M = assessment and monitoring; Cross = cross-sectional; Long. = longitudinal.
Figure 4
Figure 4
P400 amplitude and latency event-related potentials (ERP) to faces and objects. (A) Illustration of the ERP collection procedure; (B) P400 amplitude to faces (top) and objects (bottom) at 12 months; (C) P400 latency to faces (top) and objects (bottom) at 18 months. PFR = promoting first relationships; A+M = assessment and monitoring; Cross = cross-sectional; Long. = longitudinal.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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