Gaze Response to Dyadic Bids at 2 Years Related to Outcomes at 3 Years in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Subtyping Analysis

Variability in attention towards direct gaze and child-directed speech may contribute to heterogeneity of clinical presentation in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). To evaluate this hypothesis, we clustered sixty-five 20-month-old toddlers with ASD based on their visual responses to dyadic cues for engagement, identifying three subgroups. Subsequently, we compared social, language, and adaptive functioning of these subgroups at 3 years of age. The cluster displaying limited attention to social scenes in general exhibited poor outcome at 3 years; the cluster displaying good attention to the scene and to the speaker’s mouth was verbal and high functioning at 3 years. Analysis of visual responses to dyadic cues may provide a clinically meaningful approach to identifying early predictors of outcome.

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