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
. 2013 Nov 1:256:441-50.
doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2013.08.028. Epub 2013 Sep 1.

Prospective examination of visual attention during play in infants at high-risk for autism spectrum disorder: a longitudinal study from 6 to 36 months of age

Lori-Ann R Sacrey  1 , Susan E Bryson, Lonnie Zwaigenbaum
Affiliations

Prospective examination of visual attention during play in infants at high-risk for autism spectrum disorder: a longitudinal study from 6 to 36 months of age

Lori-Ann R Sacrey et al. Behav Brain Res. .

Abstract

Regulation of visual attention is essential to learning about one's environment. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit impairments in regulating their visual attention, but little is known about how such impairments develop over time. This prospective longitudinal study is the first to describe the development of components of visual attention, including engaging, sustaining, and disengaging attention, in infants at high-risk of developing ASD (each with an older sibling with ASD). Non-sibling controls and high-risk infant siblings were filmed at 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 24, and 36 months of age as they engaged in play with small, easily graspable toys. Duration of time spent looking at toy targets before moving the hand toward the target and the duration of time spent looking at the target after grasp were measured. At 36 months of age, an independent, gold standard diagnostic assessment for ASD was conducted for all participants. As predicted, infant siblings subsequently diagnosed with ASD were distinguished by prolonged latency to disengage ('sticky attention') by 12 months of age, and continued to show this characteristic at 15, 18, and 24 months of age. The results are discussed in relation to how the development of visual attention may impact later cognitive outcomes of children diagnosed with ASD.

Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder; Disengage; Engage; Infant sibling; Reaching; Visual attention.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources