Background Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by social impairments that have been related to deficits in social attention, including diminished gaze to faces. Eye-tracking studies are commonly used to examine social attention and social motivation in ASD, but they vary in sensitivity. In this study, we hypothesized that the ecological nature of the social stimuli would affect participants' social attention, with gaze behavior during more naturalistic scenes being most predictive of ASD vs. typical development. Methods 81 children with and without ASD participated in three eye-tracking tasks that differed in the ecological relevance of the social stimuli. In the “Static Visual Exploration” task, static images of objects and people were presented; in the “Dynamic Visual Exploration” task, video clips of individual faces and objects were presented side-by-side; in the “Interactive Visual Exploration” task, video clips of children playing with objects in a naturalistic context were presented. Results Our analyses uncovered a three-way interaction between Task, Social vs. Object Stimuli, and Diagnosis. This interaction was driven by group differences on one task only – the Interactive task. Bayesian analyses confirmed that the other two tasks were insensitive to group membership. In addition, ROC analyses demonstrated that, unlike the other two tasks, the Interactive task had significant classification power. Conclusions The ecological relevance of social stimuli is an important factor to consider for eye-tracking studies aiming to measure social attention and motivation in ASD.
Early experiences with books predict later reading success, and an interactive shared reading style called “dialogic reading” is especially beneficial to emergent literacy. Electronic console (EC) books, CD‐rom books, and e‐book apps are designed to teach preschoolers preliteracy skills, but research has yet to systematically explore the impact of these types of books on established predictors of positive literacy outcomes. This research fills that gap with two studies investigating dialogic language and children's story comprehension in a total of 165 parent–child dyads reading battery‐operated, touch‐sensitive children's electronic console books or traditional books. Results revealed that parent–child dialogic reading and children's story comprehension were both negatively affected by the presence of electronic features. Ways in which e‐books may be altered to better serve as educational tools in this new era are discussed.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted the well-being of vulnerable populations in the US, including Black people. The impact on pregnant women is of special concern for the intrauterine and post-natal development of their offspring. We evaluated in an online survey a sample of 913 pregnant women, 216 Black, 571 White, 126 Other, during a 2-week stay-at-home mandate in the Philadelphia region. We applied logistic regression models and analysis of covariance to examine general and pregnancy-specific worries and negative consequences arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and resilience. Black pregnant women reported greater likelihood of having their employment negatively impacted, more concerns about a lasting economic burden, and more worries about their prenatal care, birth experience, and post-natal needs. In the full sample, 11.1% of women met screening criteria for anxiety and 9.9% met criteria for depression. Black women were more likely to meet criteria for depression than White women, but this difference was not significant accounting for covariates. Resilience factors including self-reliance and emotion regulation were higher in Black women. Racial disparities related to COVID-19 in pregnant women can advance the understanding of pregnancy related stressors and improve early identification of mental health needs.
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