Brief Report: Circumscribed Attention in Young Children with Autism

Overview

Journal J Autism Dev Disord

Publisher Springer

Date 2010 May 26

PMID 20499147

Citations 87

Authors

Noah J Sasson

Jed T Elison

Lauren M Turner-Brown

Gabriel S Dichter

James W Bodfish

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

School-aged children and adolescents with autism demonstrate circumscribed attentional patterns to nonsocial aspects of complex visual arrays (Sasson et al. 2008). The current study downward extended these findings to a sample of 2-5 year-olds with autism and 2-5 year-old typically developing children. Eye-tracking was used to quantify discrete aspects of visual attention to picture arrays containing combinations of social pictures, pictures of objects frequently involved in circumscribed interests in persons with autism (e.g., trains), and pictures of more commonplace objects (e.g., clothing). The children with autism exhibited greater exploration and perseverative attention on objects related to circumscribed interests than did typically developing children. Results suggest that circumscribed attention may be an early emerging characteristic of autism.

Citing Articles

Interest paradigm for early identification of autism spectrum disorder: an analysis from electroencephalography combined with eye tracking.

Sun B, Calvert E, Ye A, Mao H, Liu K, Wang R Front Neurosci. 2024; 18:1502045.

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Evaluation of the Social Attention Hypothesis: Do Children with Autism Prefer to See Objects Rather than People?.

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A systematic review and meta-analysis of atypical visual attention towards non-social stimuli in preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder.

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Hyper-focus, sticky attention, and springy attention in young autistic children: Associations with sensory behaviors and cognitive ability.

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Attention toward Social and Non-Social Stimuli in Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Paired Preference Eye-Tracking Study.

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