Autism prodrome 26 of 89
authors conclude that decreased response to name at age 12 months has a high
specificity for 24-month outcomes of ASD (0.89) and for any type of developmental
delay (0.94). However, sensitivity was much lower (0.50 for ASD; 0.39 for all types
of delay). In their next report, Merin, Young, Ozonoff and Rogers (2007) tested the
6-month-old SIBS-A and SIBS-TD during the Still Face paradigm and examined their
visual fixation patterns and affective displays using sophisticated eye tracking
procedures. A subgroup of 11 infants demonstrated diminished gaze to the mother’s
eyes relative to her mouth during the Still Face episode. Interestingly, 10 of the 11
infants characterized by this pattern were SIBS-A. No significant differences emerged
between the two groups in affective displays (i.e., smiling, negative affect), in the
total amount of fixation time, or in the fixation directed at the face versus other areas.
Yet in their follow-up study, Young, Merin, Rogers, and Ozonoff (2009) examined
the predictive utility of these gaze and affective behaviors at 6 months to diagnostic
outcome data at age 24 months, and surprisingly report that none of the infants who
demonstrated diminished gaze to the mother’s eyes relative to her mouth at 6 months,
had any signs of autism at the outcome assessment at 24 months. Moreover, all three
children who were diagnosed with autism at 24 months (2 SIBS-A and 1 SIBS-TD)
demonstrated consistent eye contact and typical affective responses at 6 months
during the Still face procedure. Similarly, no associations were found between face
scanning and affective responses at 6 months and the continuous measures of autism
symptom frequency or symptom severity, e.g., ADOS and the M-CHAT scores at 24
months. Yet growth curve analyses revealed significant associations between face
scanning and expressive language: diminished gaze to the mother’s eyes relative to
her mouth at 6 months predicted higher scores of expressive language at 24 months as
well as greater rates of growth. The authors conclude that gaze behavior is not a
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