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Focus groups are an extensively employed research method for the collection of qualitative data. Recent developments in teleconferencing platforms have produced a substantial increase in online research, including online focus groups. The current study is the first to discuss methodological reflections on the conduct of online focus groups in adult social care research. Previously reported research on the use of online focus groups in healthcare research cannot readily be applied to the significantly distinct social care sector. Unique characteristics of the social care sector, such as the dispersion of social care services, the significant funding gap, ongoing recruitment and retention issues, and an ageing population becoming increasingly reliant on social care have consequences for the design, conduct and appropriateness of the online focus group method. In this article, we review the use of synchronous online focus groups in social care research. We conducted six online focus groups with social care professionals (total N = 37). The online focus group method is evaluated by analysing and reporting data from a participant experience survey and researcher reflection logs. Additionally, this article reviews Microsoft Teams as a platform for online focus groups. It is concluded that the benefits of increased accessibility and representation significantly outweigh the limitations related to online social communication. We suggest that the use of the online focus groups method could enhance the relatively scarce research capacity in social care, and we provide practical recommendations for the design and conduct of online focus groups in social care research.

Studies with infant siblings of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder have attempted to identify early markers for the disorder and suggest that autistic symptoms emerge between 12 and 24 months of age. Yet, a reliable first‐year marker remains elusive. We propose that in order to establish first‐year manifestations of this inherently social disorder, we need to develop research methods that are sufficiently socially demanding and realistically interactive. Building on Keemink et al. [2019, Developmental Psychology, 55, 1362–1371], we employed a gaze‐contingent eye‐tracking paradigm in which infants could interact with face stimuli. Infants could elicit emotional expressions (happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, disgust, anger) from on‐screen faces by engaging in eye contact. We collected eye‐tracking data and video‐recorded behavioural response data from 122 (64 male, 58 female) typically developing infants and 31 infant siblings (17 male, 14 female) aged 6‐, 9‐ and 12‐months old. All infants demonstrated a significant Expression by AOI interaction (F(10, 1470) = 10.003, P < 0.001, ŋp2 = 0.064). Infants' eye movements were “expression‐specific” with infants distributing their fixations to AOIs differently per expression. Whereas eye movements provide no evidence of deviancies, behavioural response data show significant aberrancies in reciprocity for infant siblings. Infant siblings show reduced social responsiveness at the group level (F(1, 147) = 4.10, P = 0.042, ŋp2 = 0.028) and individual level (Fischer's Exact, P = 0.032). We conclude that the gaze‐contingency paradigm provides a realistically interactive experience capable of detecting deviancies in social responsiveness early, and we discuss our results in relation to subsequent infant sibling development. Lay Summary We investigated how infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder respond to interactive faces presented on a computer screen. Our study demonstrates that infant siblings are less responsive when interacting with faces on a computer screen (e.g., they smile and imitate less) in comparison to infants without an older sibling with autism. Reduced responsiveness within social interaction could potentially have implications for how parents and carers interact with these infants. Autism Res 2021, 14: 973–983. © 2020 International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Infants show preferential attention toward faces and detect faces embedded within complex naturalistic scenes. Newborn infants are insensitive to race, but rapidly develop differential processing of own- and other-race faces. In the present study, we investigated the development of attentional orienting toward own- and other-race faces embedded within naturalistic scenes. Infants aged six-, nine- and twelve-months did not show differences in the speed of orienting to own- and other race faces, but other-race faces held infants’ visual attention for longer. We also found a clear developmental progression in attentional capture and holding, with older infants orienting to faces faster and fixating them for longer. Results are interpreted within the context of the two-process model of face processing.

How humans perceive facial expressions is an enduring question (see Darwin, 1873;Wundt, 1909). Using static stimuli such as the now-classic "Ekman faces" (Ekman & Friesen, 1976), much has been learned about its developmental trajectory. Infants can discriminate between certain static facial expressions from birth (Farroni et al., 2007;Field et al., 1982), and by seven months can identify many of the six "core" expressions (Ekman, 1993;Ekman et al., 1987) within discreet emotion categories (Kotsoni et al., 2001;Nelson et al., 1979;Ruba et al., 2017). Yet despite this advancement of knowledge, even the earliest studies have identified limitations of using static stimuli to investigate