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. 2020 May;32(2):491-501.
doi: 10.1017/S0954579419000233.

Development of attention from birth to 5 months in infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder

Jessica Bradshaw  1 , Ami Klin  2   3 , Lindsey Evans  4 , Cheryl Klaiman  2   3 , Celine Saulnier  3 , Courtney McCracken  5
Affiliations

Development of attention from birth to 5 months in infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder

Jessica Bradshaw et al. Dev Psychopathol. 2020 May.

Abstract

Social-communication skills emerge within the context of rich social interactions, facilitated by an infant's capacity to attend to people and objects in the environment. Disruption in this early neurobehavioral process may decrease the frequency and quality of social interactions and learning opportunities, potentially leading to downstream deleterious effects on social development. This study examined early attention in infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who are at risk for social and communication delays. Visual and auditory attention was mapped from age 1 week to 5 months in infants at familial risk for ASD (high risk; N = 41) and low-risk typically developing infants (low risk; N = 39). At 12 months, a subset of participants (N = 40) was administered assessments of social communication and nonverbal cognitive skills. Results revealed that high-risk infants performed lower on attention tasks at 2 and 3 months of age compared to low-risk infants. A significant association between overall attention at 3 months and developmental outcome at 12 months was observed for both groups. These results provide evidence for early vulnerabilities in visual attention for infants at risk for ASD during a period of important neurodevelopmental transition (between 2 and 3 months) when attention has significant implications for social communication and cognitive development.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder; infancy; neonate; social communication; visual attention.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Attention from 1 week to 5 months of age for high-risk (HR) and low-risk (LR) infants.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Inanimate (left) and animate (right) attention for high-risk (HR) and low-risk (LR) infants.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Association between 3-month attention score and 12-month CSBS score with 95% CI.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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