Increased Eye Contact During Conversation Compared to Play in Children With Autism

Rebecca M. Jones; Audrey Southerland; Amarelle Hamo; Caroline Carberry; Chanel Bridges; Sarah Nay; Elizabeth Stubbs; Emily Komarow; Clay Washington; James M. Rehg; Catherine Lord; Agata Rozga

doi:10.1007/s10803-016-2981-4

Increased Eye Contact During Conversation Compared to Play in Children With Autism

Rebecca M. Jones, Audrey Southerland, Amarelle Hamo, Caroline Carberry, Chanel Bridges, Sarah Nay, Elizabeth Stubbs, Emily Komarow, Clay Washington, James M. Rehg, Catherine Lord, Agata Rozga

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Children with autism have atypical gaze behavior but it is unknown whether gaze differs during distinct types of reciprocal interactions. Typically developing children (N = 20) and children with autism (N = 20) (4–13 years) made similar amounts of eye contact with an examiner during a conversation. Surprisingly, there was minimal eye contact during interactive play in both groups. Gaze behavior was stable across 8 weeks in children with autism (N = 15). Lastly, gaze behavior during conversation but not play was associated with autism social affect severity scores (ADOS CSS SA) and the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-2). Together findings suggests that eye contact in typical and atypical development is influenced by subtle changes in context, which has implications for optimizing assessments of social communication skills.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	607-614
Number of pages	8
Journal	Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
Volume	47
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2981-4
State	Published - Mar 1 2017
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
Context
Eye contact
Gaze
Naturalistic interactions
Play

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Developmental and Educational Psychology

Online availability

10.1007/s10803-016-2981-4

Library availability

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title = "Increased Eye Contact During Conversation Compared to Play in Children With Autism",

abstract = "Children with autism have atypical gaze behavior but it is unknown whether gaze differs during distinct types of reciprocal interactions. Typically developing children (N = 20) and children with autism (N = 20) (4–13 years) made similar amounts of eye contact with an examiner during a conversation. Surprisingly, there was minimal eye contact during interactive play in both groups. Gaze behavior was stable across 8 weeks in children with autism (N = 15). Lastly, gaze behavior during conversation but not play was associated with autism social affect severity scores (ADOS CSS SA) and the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-2). Together findings suggests that eye contact in typical and atypical development is influenced by subtle changes in context, which has implications for optimizing assessments of social communication skills.",

keywords = "Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Context, Eye contact, Gaze, Naturalistic interactions, Play",

author = "Jones, {Rebecca M.} and Audrey Southerland and Amarelle Hamo and Caroline Carberry and Chanel Bridges and Sarah Nay and Elizabeth Stubbs and Emily Komarow and Clay Washington and Rehg, {James M.} and Catherine Lord and Agata Rozga",

note = "Funding Information: This study was funded in part by the Simons Foundation (336363 & 383667), Autism Speaks Meixner Fellowship (7608), the Department of Defense (AR130106), a generous gift from the Mortimer D. Sackler family, the Leon Levy Foundation and the DeWitt-Wallace Reader{\textquoteright}s Digest Fund. We thank Richard Vuduc for his assistance with formatting figures. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York.",

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T1 - Increased Eye Contact During Conversation Compared to Play in Children With Autism

AU - Jones, Rebecca M.

AU - Southerland, Audrey

AU - Hamo, Amarelle

AU - Carberry, Caroline

AU - Bridges, Chanel

AU - Nay, Sarah

AU - Stubbs, Elizabeth

AU - Komarow, Emily

AU - Washington, Clay

AU - Rehg, James M.

AU - Lord, Catherine

AU - Rozga, Agata

N1 - Funding Information: This study was funded in part by the Simons Foundation (336363 & 383667), Autism Speaks Meixner Fellowship (7608), the Department of Defense (AR130106), a generous gift from the Mortimer D. Sackler family, the Leon Levy Foundation and the DeWitt-Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund. We thank Richard Vuduc for his assistance with formatting figures. Publisher Copyright: © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York.

PY - 2017/3/1

Y1 - 2017/3/1

N2 - Children with autism have atypical gaze behavior but it is unknown whether gaze differs during distinct types of reciprocal interactions. Typically developing children (N = 20) and children with autism (N = 20) (4–13 years) made similar amounts of eye contact with an examiner during a conversation. Surprisingly, there was minimal eye contact during interactive play in both groups. Gaze behavior was stable across 8 weeks in children with autism (N = 15). Lastly, gaze behavior during conversation but not play was associated with autism social affect severity scores (ADOS CSS SA) and the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-2). Together findings suggests that eye contact in typical and atypical development is influenced by subtle changes in context, which has implications for optimizing assessments of social communication skills.

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Increased Eye Contact During Conversation Compared to Play in Children With Autism

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Keywords

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