Abstract
This study investigated the oculomotor performance in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) during a face-to-face conversation. A head mounted eye tracker recorded the eye movements in 20 children with ASD and 23 children with typical development (TD). Group comparisons were conducted on the randomness and the quantity of eye movement. The amount of time needed to reveal group difference was also examined. Results showed that the randomness of eye movement was significantly higher at all examined time durations, and the amount of eye movement was significantly greater within 3 s in the ASD group. These findings demonstrated an atypical pattern of oculomotor dynamics in children ASD, which might facilitate the objective identification of ASD during daily social interaction.
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05 October 2021
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05294-0
Abbreviations
- ASD:
-
Autism spectrum disorder
- DSM-V:
-
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—5th Edition
- TD:
-
Typical development
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Funding
The study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 82171539), the SZU Funding Project (No. 860-000002110259), the Science and Technology Innovation Committee of Shenzhen (No. JCYJ20190808115205498), the Key Medical Discipline of Guangming Shenzhen (No. 12 Epidemiology), Sanming Project of Medicine in Shenzhen (No. SZSM201612079), Key Realm R&D Program of Guangdong Province (No. 2019B030335001), Shenzhen Key Medical Discipline Construction Fund (No.SZXK042), and Shenzhen Double Chain Grant [2018]256.
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ZZ, XZ, XQ, and JL designed the experiment and recruited participants. ZZ, JX, and XH performed data analysis and statistics. ZZ, XZ, and XQ drafted and revised the manuscript.
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Appendix: Details of the Structured Conversation: Generic Question
Appendix: Details of the Structured Conversation: Generic Question
1. What is your name |
2. How is your name written |
3. What is the name of your school and what grade are you in? |
4. Who is your best friend? What is your favorite thing to do together? |
5. Could you please share with me the most interesting thing happened last week? Let me know the time, place, people and the whole process of the event |
6. What is the plan for your summer vacation? |
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Zhao, Z., Xing, J., Zhang, X. et al. Random and Short-Term Excessive Eye Movement in Children with Autism During Face-to-Face Conversation. J Autism Dev Disord 52, 3699–3710 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05255-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05255-7