eye tracking – ASF Weekly Science Podcasts

September 10, 2023September 10, 2023

Now you know the reason for decades of eye tracking research

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Can biomarkers that measure things like visual social attention be a good proxy for an in person behavioral diagnosis? Why would this be important? This week’s podcast explores two new studies the the Journal of the American Medical Association that show a simple device called EarliPoint can be used to shorten the wait times to receive a diagnostic evaluation. Currently autism can be diagnosed at 18 months but most families do not get into an appointment until 4-5 years of age. That can change. Families were able to easily complete it, it predicted things like not just a diagnosis but behavioral features and cognitive ability. It’s been deployed in 6 speciality centers, been approved by the FDA, and hopefully coming to a clinic near you soon.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10481232/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37668621/

May 24, 2021May 24, 2021

Eye gaze and real-life early detection tools: An interview with researchers from Duke

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What babies look at during development and how much time they spend looking at people vs things has received a lot of criticism from some advocates who feel scientists should be spending less time on differences and more on practical solutions. Those two concepts are getting closer and closer and our early understandings of early autism features are now turning into applications to help better and earlier identification of ASD. This week, we talk to Geri Dawson and George Chang at Duke University who used these findings to piloted an app on an iPad. This app shows early promise of being used in a pediatricians office to support faster referral of toddlers for services and intervention.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33900383/

December 11, 2016

Why is it so hard to look them in the eye?

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There is an ongoing debate about why people with autism avoid eye contact. There is data to support both, but as this behavior emerges very early, it’s important to look at data from preverbal children to understand the origins of changes in eye contact. Many scientists also feel that avoiding eye contact snowballs over the lifespan and deprives people with autism from developing social skills. Infants don’t even know why they avoid eye contact so at the Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta, researchers are using eye tracking technology to answer this question. The findings have clear implications for early intervention strategies.