The name is absent

Autism prodrome 10 of 89

development during the first two years of life. Infants who later developed ASDs had
more abnormalities in intersubjective behaviors, such as anticipation of another’s aim
and imitation in the first 6 months of life, and more abnormalities in the course of
symbolic activity between 6 and 24 months. In subsequent analysis, Maestro et al.
(2002; 2005) reported that infants later diagnosed with ASDs had poor attention to
social stimuli, but not to non-social stimuli (objects) in the first 6 months of life. In
the second half of the first year, an increase in interest in objects was observed in both
groups, but by the end of the year the ASDs group was significantly more interested
in objects than the typically developing infants. The researchers suggested that infants
who later develop autism may shift their spontaneous attention mainly toward
nonsocial stimuli rather than toward social stimuli, during the first year and that this
early deficit in social attention might be a precursor of later impairment in joint
attention. Maestro et al. (2006) reported that non-social attention was more frequent
than social attention in infants who later developed ASD, regardless of whether
regression was or was not part of the clinical picture. Infants with early onset of
autism presented an early deficit in social attention, whereas infants with regressive
autism exhibited an increase in social attention until their first birthday and a decrease
in social attention after 12 months. This group (Phagava et al., 2008) also detected
abnormalities in spontaneous motor activity i.e., abnormal fidgety movements in the
first months of life of infants later diagnosed with ASDs in comparison to a group of
typically developing infants. Esposito, Venuti, Maestro and Muratori (2009) expanded
the investigation of motor activity and added another comparison group of infants
later diagnosed with intellectual disability, using home videos of the first 5 months of
life. Results indicated that reduced static symmetry and dynamic symmetry while
lying differentiated the ASDs groups from the other comparison groups. The authors

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