Context-Specific Dyadic Attention Vulnerabilities During the First Year in Infants Later Developing Autism Spectrum Disorder.

OBJECTIVE: Although some eye-tracking studies demonstrate atypical attention to faces by 6 months of age in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), behavioral studies in early infancy return largely negative results. We examined the effects of context and diagnosis on attention to faces during face-to-face live interactions in infants at high familial risk (HR) and low familial risk (LR) for ASD. METHOD: Participants were 6-, 9-, and 12-month-old siblings of children with ASD who were later determined to have ASD (n = 21), other developmental challenges (HR-C; n = 74), or typical development (TD) (HR-TD; n = 32), and low-risk, typically developing controls (LR-TD; n = 49). Infants were administered the social orienting probes task, consisting of five conditions: dyadic bid, song, peek-a-boo, tickle, and toy play. Attention to an unfamiliar examiner's face was coded by blinded raters from video recordings. RESULTS: At all ages, the ASD group spent less time looking at the examiner's face than the HR-C, HR-TD, and LR-TD groups during the Dyadic Bid and Tickle conditions (all p <.05), but not during the Song, Peek-a-Boo, or Toy Play conditions (all p >.23). Lower attention to faces during Dyadic Bid and Tickle conditions was significantly correlated with higher severity of autism symptoms at 18 months. CONCLUSION: During the prodromal stages of the disorder, infants with ASD exhibited subtle impairments in attention to faces of interactive partners during interactions involving eye contact and child-directed speech (with and without physical contact), but not in contexts involving singing, familiar anticipatory games, or toy play. Considering the convergence with eye-tracking findings on limited attention to faces in infants later diagnosed with ASD, reduced attention to faces of interactive partners in specific contexts may constitute a promising candidate behavioral marker of ASD in infancy.

Preliminary Psychometrics for the Executive Function Challenge Task: A Novel, "Hot" Flexibility, and Planning Task for Youth.

OBJECTIVE: Executive functions (EF) drive health and educational outcomes and therefore are increasingly common treatment targets. Most treatment trials rely on questionnaires to capture meaningful change because ecologically valid, pediatric performance-based EF tasks are lacking. The Executive Function Challenge Task (EFCT) is a standardized, treatment-sensitive, objective measure which assesses flexibility and planning in the context of provocative social interactions, making it a "hot" EF task. METHOD: We investigate the structure, reliability, and validity of the EFCT in youth with autism (Autism Spectrum Disorder; n = 129), or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder with flexibility problems (n = 93), and typically developing (TD; n = 52) youth. RESULTS: The EFCT can be coded reliably, has a two-factor structure (flexibility and planning), and adequate internal consistency and consistency across forms. Unlike a traditional performance-based EF task (verbal fluency), it shows significant correlations with parent-reported EF, indicating ecological validity. EFCT performance distinguishes youth with known EF problems from TD youth and is not significantly related to visual pattern recognition, or social communication/understanding in autistic children. CONCLUSIONS: The EFCT demonstrates adequate reliability and validity and may provide developmentally appropriate, treatment-sensitive, and ecologically valid assessment of "hot" EF in youth. It can be administered in controlled settings by masked administrators.

Do Parents and Clinicians Agree on Ratings of Autism-Related Behaviors at 12 Months of Age? A Study of Infants at High and Low Risk for ASD.

Given the emphasis on early screening for ASD, it is crucial to examine the concordance between parent report and clinician observation of autism-related behaviors. Similar items were compared from the First Year Inventory (Baranek et al. First-Year Inventory (FYI) 2.0. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2003), a parent screener for ASD, and the ADOS-2 Toddler Module (Lord et al. 2013), a standardized ASD diagnostic tool. Measures were administered concurrently to 12-month-olds at high and low risk for ASD. Results suggest that clinicians and parents rated behaviors similarly. In addition, both informants rated high-risk infants as more impaired in several social-communication behaviors. Furthermore, the format of questions impacted agreement across observers. These findings have implications for the development of a new generation of screening instruments for ASD.