Nonverbal expression in autism of Asperger type

Abstract

Short unstructured social interactions between a volunteer interviewer, an adult with autism of Asperger type, and a control subject with a schizoid personality disorder were video-recorded. Asperger subjects tended to look less at the other person, to make more self-stimulatory gestures, and to look at the interviewer significantly less than normal subjects, and substantially less than schizoid subjects, during the periods when the interviewer was vocalizing although there were no such differences when the interviewer was listening. We suggest that the gaze avoidance of autism may in actuality be a lack of expected gaze (e.g., gaze when the other person is talking) rather than an absolute avoidance, and suggest that a lifelong absence of gaze response to social cues including speech could explain a number of the developmental features of autism including lack of joint attention with others, lack of understanding and affective response to others, and poor discrimination of facial expressions.

Association of Per1 and Npas2 with autistic disorder: support for the clock genes/social timing hypothesis

“…135 Mother-infant synchrony itself predicts wide-ranging later developments. [135][136][137] Temporal synchrony/reciprocity difficulties of autism [49][50][51] have also been recorded in autistic infancy, 52,138,139 where they may serve as a functional deficit contributing to the developmental cascade of autistic disorder. 21,22,44,140,141 Problems in timing, memory and sleep are all characteristics of autistic disorder and aspects of timing, memory and sleep are each clock-generegulated in other species.…”

“…[45][46][47][48] They also extend to the reciprocity/temporal synchrony skills required for conversation. [49][50][51][52] Objectively recorded atypical sleep architecture in young adults with high-functioning autism and Asperger syndrome 53 and in children with autistic disorder 54 shows association between sleep profiles and autistic symptomatology. 53,54 Circadian hormone (melatonin) anomalies are found in autistic disorder [55][56][57] as well as altered serotonin levels in autism.…”

The Role of Face Familiarity in Eye Tracking of Faces by Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…This attention to faces provides the infants with opportunities to extract information about the face and its relation to external events (e.g., speech) and internal states (e.g., emotion). It has been hypothesized that the impairments in face processing observed in individuals with ASD may reflect reduced social interest in faces (Adrien et al 1993;Grelotti et al 2002;Klin et al 1999;Tantam et al 1993). Deficits in social motivation in ASD may lead to a failure to attend to faces and a failure to develop expertise for faces, resulting in a disruption of the development of the brain systems dedicated to processing faces in a typical pattern Grelotti et al 2002).…”

Skin Conductance Responses to Another Person’s Gaze in Children with Autism

“…In empirical studies of gaze behaviour in autism, research has concentrated on (i) possible lack of eye contact and (ii) on presumable deficits in the use of gaze to control social interaction. In studies concentrating on the amount of eye contact, the results have shown that individuals with autism spontaneously direct their own gaze to other people less than normally developing individuals (Hutt & Ounsted, 1966;Kasari, Sigman, & Yirmiya, 1993;Osterling & Dawson, 1994;Pederson, Livoir-Petersen, & Schelde, 1989;Phillips, Baron-Cohen, & Rutter, 1992;Tantam, Holmes, & Cordess, 1993;Volkmar & Mayes, 1990). Studies investigating the use of gaze in social interaction have, in turn, shown deficits in timing and quality of gaze behaviour (Baron-Cohen, Baldwin, & Crowson, 1997;Buitelaar, van Engeland, De Kogel, De Vries, & van Hooff, 1991;Mirenda, Donellan, & Yoder, 1983;Swettenham et al, 1998;Willemsen-Swinkles, Buitelaar, Weijnen, & van Engeland, 1998).…”