Developmental change in look durations predicts later effortful control in toddlers at familial risk for ASD

Abstract

BackgroundDifficulties with executive functioning (EF) are common in individuals with a range of developmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Interventions that target underlying mechanisms of EF early in development could be broadly beneficial, but require infant markers of such mechanisms in order to be feasible. Prospective studies of infants at high familial risk (HR) for ASD have revealed a surprising tendency for HR toddlers to show longer epochs of attention to faces than low-risk (LR) controls. In typical development, decreases in look durations towards the end of the first year of life are driven by the development of executive attention—a foundational component of EF. Here, we test the hypothesis that prolonged attention to visual stimuli (including faces) in HR toddlers reflects early differences in the development of executive attention.MethodsIn a longitudinal prospective study, we used eye-tracking to record HR and LR infants’ looking behaviour to social and non-social visual stimuli at ages 9 and 15 months. At age 3 years, we assessed children with a battery of clinical research measures and collected parental report of effortful control (EC)—a temperament trait closely associated with EF and similarly contingent on executive attention.ResultsConsistent with previous studies, we found an attenuated reduction in peak look durations to faces between 9 and 15 months for the HR group compared with the LR group, and lower EC amongst the HR-ASD group. In line with our hypothesis, change in peak look duration to faces between 9 and 15 months was negatively associated with EC at age 3.ConclusionsWe suggest that for HR toddlers, disruption to the early development of executive attention results in an attenuated reduction in looking time to faces. Effects may be more apparent for faces due to early biases to orient towards them; further, attention difficulties may interact with earlier emerging differences in social information processing. Our finding that prolonged attention to faces may be an early indicator of disruption to the executive attention system is of potential value in screening for infants at risk for later EF difficulties and for evaluation of intervention outcomes.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s11689-017-9219-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Atypical Development of Attentional Control Associates with Later Adaptive Functioning, Autism and ADHD Traits

“…Colombo and colleagues have argued that changes in looking behaviour towards the end of the first year of life and into the second year are sensitive to the development of attentional control (Colombo and Cheatham 2006). Consistent with this, we have shown in a sample of EL and TL infants that changes in looking behaviour between 9 and 15 months are predictive of parent-reported effortful control (a composite of attentional and impulse control, low intensity pleasure and cuddliness scores) at age 3 years (Hendry et al 2018). Moreover, we found that EL infants as a group showed an attenuated change in peak look durations to faces.…”

Atypical development of attentional control associates with later adaptive functioning, autism and ADHD traits

“…Colombo and colleagues have argued that changes in looking behaviour towards the end of the first year of life and into the second year are sensitive to the development of attentional control (Colombo & Cheatham, 2006). Consistent with this, we have shown in a sample of EL and TL infants that changes in looking behaviour between 9 and 15 months are predictive of parent-reported effortful control (a composite of attentional and impulse control, low intensity pleasure and cuddliness scores) at age 3 years (Hendry et al, 2018). Moreover, we found that EL infants as a group showed an attenuated change in peak look durations to faces.…”

Regression in autism spectrum disorder: Reconciling findings from retrospective and prospective research

“…However, a proportion of infants who develop ASD would be expected to develop co‐occurring ADHD symptoms and the relationship between early emerging attentional difficulties, ASD and ADHD risk is unclear. For example, attenuated reduction in looks to faces between 9 and 15 months of age was associated with poorer effortful control at 36 months, though not with symptoms of ASD or ADHD [Hendry et al, ]. Decreasing performance on an inhibition task between 12 and 24 months of age has been demonstrated in high‐risk infant siblings, though this was regardless of subsequent ASD status [St. John et al, ].…”