Development of Face Processing in Infants with Autism Spectrum Disorders

自闭症谱系障碍婴儿面部处理的发展

• 批准号: 8048141
• 负责人: KATARZYNA CHAWARSKA
• 金额: $ 40.96万
• 依托单位: YALE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-04-01 至 2015-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8048141
• 关键词: 3 year old; Address; Affect; Age; Attention; Autistic Disorder; Awareness; Behavioral; Child; Clinical; Cognition; Cognitive deficits; Computer-Assisted Image Analysis; Cues; Data; Development; Developmental Delay Disorders; Diagnosis; Diagnostic; Early Diagnosis; Early identification; Employment; Environment; Exhibits; Eye; Face; Face Processing; Genetic; Goals; Heterogeneity; Housing; Human; Impairment; Individual; Infant; Language; Learning; Life; Link; Longitudinal Studies; Measures; Mediating; Methodology; Nature; Newborn Infant; Oral cavity; Outcome; Outcome Measure; Pattern; Performance; Peripheral; Phase; Phenotype; Population; Procedures; Process; Property; Public Health; Reaction Time; Regulation; Research; Research Design; Residual state; Risk; Role; Scanning; Series; Siblings; Signal Transduction; Social Interaction; Specific qualifier value; Speech Perception; Speed; Staging; Stimulus; Symptoms; Testing; Time; Toddler; United States National Institutes of Health; Visual; Visual attention; Visual system structure; age effect; autism spectrum disorder; base; clinical Diagnosis; cognitive system; comparison group; face perception; high risk; improved; indexing; infancy; interest; novel; preference; primary outcome; prospective; public health relevance; research study; response; secondary outcome; skills; social; theories

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Considering the early role of human faces as compelling stimuli for typically developing newborns and considering the emergence of sophisticated face recognition skills by six months in typical development, it is very likely that face processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is affected from the first months of life. This project aims to characterize the emergence of face processing abnormalities in infants with ASD by prospectively following, from 3 months to 36 months of life, 160 infants at high risk for developing ASD due to a genetic liability (i.e. by having an older sibling with ASD). At 36 months, clinical diagnosis of the high-risk population will afford the division of the population into three groups: 1) siblings with ASD; 2) Non-Affected siblings (NAF); and 3) siblings with various developmental delays but without ASD features (DD). Developmental changes in face processing skills will be compared against 40 low-risk, typically developing infants (TYP). The set of interrelated face processing skills to be examined include: 1) localization of faces and focused attention to faces; 2) attentional disengagement from faces; and 3) face scanning and recognition. Localization of faces and focused attention towards faces tests the hypothesis that, when presented with faces in naturalistic environments, children who later develop ASD will take longer to localize a face, and, when they do, will spend less time focused on the face. Disengagement from faces task tests the hypothesis that DD, TYP and NAF attend to faces in an obligatory manner and process them on a deeper level as compared to children who develop ASD. This hypothesis will be reflected by a longer latency in shifting attention away from the face to a remote target that appears suddenly. Face scanning and recognition will test the hypothesis that infants with ASD will, with age, exhibit a progressively atypical pattern of face scanning and that the degree of abnormality will correlate with recognition skills as well as social and cognitive deficits. The process of encoding facial features and recognition skills will be gauged via an infant-controlled habituation paradigm. It is expected that the patterns in localization of faces, focused attention towards faces, attention capture by faces, and face scanning and recognition, will, in combination, highlight the developmental divergence in high-risk and low-risk children and correlate with worsening autistic symptoms. Our goals are to identify the type of primary impairments in face processing and to understand the developmental trajectories of face processing abnormalities in the earliest stages of ASD. This will inform early diagnosis (through identification of potential early indicators of risk for ASD), treatment (though identification of pivotal target skills), and theory (through enhancing understanding of mechanisms underlying abnormalities in face perception in ASD). This project addresses several key action items of the NIH Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, with emphasis on understanding of underlying mechanisms of social impairment and identifying behavioral markers for ASD in infancy. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: In this project we will characterize the emergence of face processing abnormalities in infants with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) by prospectively following, from 3 months to 36 months of life, infants that are, due to a genetic liability, at high risk for developing ASD. We will employ cutting-edge eye tracking methodologies and analytic strategies to study aspects of attention, learning, and recognition associated with face perception in order to inform early diagnosis (through identification of early indicators of risk for ASD), treatment (through identification of pivotal target skills), neurodevelopmental theory (through enhancing understanding of mechanisms underlying abnormalities in face perception in ASD), and clinical theory (by parsing heterogeneity in ASD and tracking broader autism-related phenotypes). These are amongst key objectives identified by the NIH Interagency Autism Committee and therefore highly relevant to public health.

描述（由申请人提供）：考虑到人脸的早期作用是通常发展新生儿的刺激性刺激，并考虑到典型发育中六个月的复杂面部识别能力的出现，自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的脸部处理很可能会影响到生命的最初几个月。该项目旨在表征ASD婴儿面部处理异常的出现，即前瞻性跟随3个月至36个月的生命，由于遗传责任而导致ASD的高风险高160名（即，与ASD的年龄较大的兄弟姐妹）。在36个月的时间里，对高风险人群的临床诊断将使人口分为三组：1）与ASD的兄弟姐妹； 2）未受影响的兄弟姐妹（NAF）； 3）具有各种发育延迟但没有ASD特征（DD）的兄弟姐妹。面部处理技能的发展变化将与40个低风险的，通常是发育不全的婴儿进行比较（typ）。需要检查的一系列相互关联的面部处理技能包括：1）面部定位并集中注意面对面； 2）脸上的注意力脱离接触； 3）面对扫描和认可。面孔的定位和集中注意力的注意力测试了以下假设：在自然主义环境中出现面孔时，后来发展ASD的孩子将需要更长的时间来定位面孔，而当他们这样做时，将花费更少的时间集中在面部上。脱离面部任务的脱离接触测试了以下假设：与发展ASD的儿童相比，DD，TYP和NAF以强制性的方式进行面对面，并以更深层次的水平进行处理。该假设将通过将注意力从面部转移到突然出现的遥远目标方面的较长延迟来反映。面部扫描和识别将检验以下假设：随着年龄的增长，ASD的婴儿将表现出非典型的面部扫描模式，并且异常程度将与识别能力以及社会和认知缺陷相关。编码面部特征和识别技能的过程将通过婴儿控制的习惯范式来衡量。可以预期，面部定位的模式，将注意力集中在面孔上，面部的注意力捕获以及面部扫描和识别，将结合介绍高危儿童和低风险儿童的发育差异，并与自闭症症状恶化相关。我们的目标是确定面部处理中的主要障碍类型，并了解ASD最早阶段的面部处理异常的发展轨迹。这将为早期诊断（通过鉴定ASD风险的潜在早期指标），治疗（尽管鉴定关键目标技能的识别）和理论（通过增强对ASD面部感知中基本异常的理解的理解）。该项目介绍了NIH机构间自闭症协调委员会的几个关键行动项目，重点是理解社会障碍的潜在机制，并确定婴儿期ASD的行为标记。 公共卫生相关性：在这个项目中，我们将表征患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）婴儿面部处理异常（ASD）的出现，通过前瞻性地跟随3个月到36个月的生命，这些婴儿由于遗传责任而受到遗传责任，患ASD的风险很高。我们将采用尖端的眼动方法和分析策略来研究注意力，学习和与面部感知相关的方面，以便为早期诊断（通过鉴定ASD的早期诊断（通过识别ASD风险的早期指标），治疗），治疗（通过识别枢轴目标技能），神经发育理论（通过增强了临时的理论和临时性的理解（通过在表面上）的机制（通过临时），该理论是在面对面的理解（在均匀的机制中），该理论（在面前）（在面前）（在面前）（） ASD中的异质性和跟踪更广泛的自闭症相关表型）。这些是NIH机构间自闭症委员会确定的关键目标，因此与公共卫生高度相关。