Little children look at relatives' faces, watch out for autism

Little 6-month-old children look at the face of the opposite person and turn away when someone who talks to them later grows up often with autism.

That is the discovery from a long-term study by Yale University scientists (UK) that has just been published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

In this study, 6-month-olds saw a series of videos with standing faces, smiling faces and talking faces, and scientists would recapture their reaction.

Scientists have used eye-marking technology, to accurately mark and redraw the positions that their eyes pay attention to.

By the time these children were 3, they were reassessed and divided into groups based on the diagnosis of autism, other forms of developmental delay or normal development.

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Scientists found that children with autism were not only less likely to look at faces than other children, but when they were introduced to a face, they did not look at their eyes and mouth. that person.

Dr. Frederick Shic, the leader of the research team, said: "From birth, babies have shown an interest in communicating with others, in which the two most typical expressions are looking at the face and hearing. But social inclinations tend to be changed in later individuals diagnosed with autism, which suggests that the presence of speech interrupts attention to the face of a child. This is autism. "

While the usual signs of autism are often unable to diagnose when a child is under 2 years of age, this study (along with some other studies) confirms that abnormalities in children's behavior and attention can be detected when they are 6 months old.

The findings indicate that children with autism often have difficulty keeping their attention to social information early on, when they are six months old. That can reduce the quality of interaction with others, and therefore, affect the child's social development trajectory.