Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder are more successful at visual search than typically developing toddlers: Toddlers with ASD are more successful at visual search
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Plaisted, O'Riordan and colleagues (Plaisted, O'Riordan & Baron-Cohen, 1998; O'Riordan, 2004) showed that school-age children and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are faster at finding targets in certain types of visual search tasks than typical controls. Currently though, there is very little known about the visual search skills of very young children (1-3-year-olds) - either typically developing or with ASD. We used an eye-tracker to measure looking behavior, providing fine-grained measures of visual search in 2.5-year-old toddlers with and without ASD (this representing the age by which many children may first receive a diagnosis of ASD). Importantly, our paradigm required no verbal instructions or feedback, making the task appropriate for toddlers who are pre- or nonverbal. We found that toddlers with ASD were more successful at finding the target than typically developing, age-matched controls. Further, our paradigm allowed us to estimate the number of items scrutinized per trial, revealing that for large set size conjunctive search, toddlers with ASD scrutinized as many as twice the number of items as typically developing toddlers, in the same amount of time.
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The findings are not confounded by differences in oculomotor behavior because the analysis used the first saccade made in each trial rather than whether infants ever visited the target.
“Because we analyzed the first saccade made in each trial, and not whether infants ever visited the target during the trial (as in some previous visual search studies [5]), we are confident our findings are not confounded by differences in oculomotor behavior described in this population [14].”
From Enhanced Visual Search in Infancy Predicts Emerging Autism Symptoms (2015) · cites this paper as [5]
Individuals with autism show superior performance in visual search tasks.
“One well-replicated finding is that of superior performance in visual search tasks, in which participants have to indicate the presence of an odd-one-out element among a number of foils [2–5].”
From Enhanced Visual Search in Infancy Predicts Emerging Autism Symptoms (2015) · cites this paper as [5]
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- Kraper C Kaldy Z Blaser E Carter AS 2010 2.5-year-old toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder are more successful at visual search than typically developing toddlers Poster presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research Philadelphia, PA 20–22 May PMC3177163 21884314
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- Authors
- Kaldy, Z., Kraper, C., Carter, A. S., & Blaser, E.
- Affiliations
- University of Massachusetts Boston (US)
- Venue
- Developmental Science
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2011-04-25
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 980-988
- ISSN
- 1363-755X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3177163
- OpenAlex
- W2154324780
- Cited by
- 133
- References
- 40
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 5.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Developmental Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Massachusetts Boston
- National Institutes of Health
- National Eye Institute (R15EY017985)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, toddlers, visual search, eye tracking, viewing behavior, set size, preverbal children, typically developing children, visual attention
- MeSH terms
- Attention, Autistic Disorder, Child Development Disorders, Pervasive, Child, Preschool, Cognition, Eye Movements, Fixation, Ocular, Humans, Infant, Pattern Recognition, Visual
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