Spontaneous belief attribution in younger siblings of children on the autism spectrum.

Abstract

The recent development in the measurements of spontaneous mental state understanding, employing eye-movements instead of verbal responses, has opened new opportunities for understanding the developmental origin of “mind-reading” impairments frequently described in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Our main aim was to characterize the relationship between mental state understanding and the broader autism phenotype, early in childhood. An eye-tracker was used to capture anticipatory looking as a measure of false beliefs attribution in 3-year-old children with a family history of autism (at-risk participants, n = 47) and controls (control participants, n = 39). Unlike controls, the at-risk group, independent of their clinical outcome (ASD, broader autism phenotype or typically developing), performed at chance. Performance was not related to children’s verbal or general IQ, nor was it explained by children “missing out” on crucial information, as shown by an analysis of visual scanning during the task. We conclude that difficulties with using mental state understanding for action prediction may be an endophenotype of autism spectrum disorders.

Impaired representational gaze following in children with autism spectrum disorder

“…Non-verbal measures like the eye gaze can often tap core knowledge in the social domain (i.e. theory of mind) better than the verbal ones (Gliga et al, 2014). We measured gaze following in response to a video in order to reduce the influence of real social interaction.…”

“…Klin, Jones, Schultz, Volkmar, & Cohen, 2002) and in those with high familial risk of ASD (e.g. Gliga, Senju, Pettinato, Charman & Johnson, 2014). Eye tracking studies indicate a reduced voluntary exploration of the attended objects in response to static gaze cues in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (Fletcher-Watson, Findley, Leekam, & Benson, 2009;Freeth, Chapman, Ropar, & Mitchell, 2010;Riby, Hancock, Jones, & Hanley, 2013).…”

Cognitive Functioning in the Broad Autism Phenotype

“…Younger siblings of children with ASD again served as participants in a study by Gliga et al (2014). Rather than relying on verbal responses, this team of researchers tracked youngsters' eye movements as a means of examining the relationship between the BAP and ToM.…”

Interacción social y comunicación temprana en hermanos de niños con diagnóstico de trastorno del espectro autista: una revisión de la literatura

“…De igual modo, en tareas como la falsa creencia-tarea que evalúa habilidades cognitivas relacionadas con la Teoría de la Mente (Baron-Cohen, 1991), que explica cómo las personas somos capaces de reconocer que los otros tienen representaciones mentales propias y actuar en base a ello-, la menor puntuación de los niños con riesgo no se debe a su baja atención a la información o a su menor motivación hacia la participación, sino más bien al modo en cómo se procesa la información atendida (Gliga, Senju, Pettinato, Charman & Johnson, 2014;Sumiyoshi, Kawakubo, Suga, Sumiyoshi & Kasai, 2011).…”