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Reducing facial dynamics’ speed during speech enhances attention to mouth in children with autism spectrum disorder: An eye-tracking study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2020

Bruno Gepner ,
Anaïs Godde Open the ORCID record for Anaïs Godde [Opens in a new window] ,
Aurore Charrier ,
Nicolas Carvalho  and
Carole Tardif
Bruno Gepner*
Affiliation:
Institut de Neurophysiopathologie (INP), Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France
Anaïs Godde
Affiliation:
Laboratoire dePsychologie de la Cognition, du Langage et de l'Emotion (PSYCLE), Aix-Marseille University, Aix-en-Provence, France
Aurore Charrier
Affiliation:
Institut Médico-éducatif La Frégate, Aidera Var, Toulon, France
Nicolas Carvalho
Affiliation:
Chargé de recherche, University of Lausanne, Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, Health Services Unit, Switzerland
Carole Tardif
Affiliation:
Laboratoire dePsychologie de la Cognition, du Langage et de l'Emotion (PSYCLE), Aix-Marseille University, Aix-en-Provence, France
*
Author for correspondence: Dr. Bruno Gepner, Institut de Neurophysiopathologie (INP), Aix-Marseille University, UMR CNRS 7051, Faculté de Médecine, 27 Bd Jean Moulin, 13385Marseille, France; E-mail: bruno.gepner@univ-amu.fr.
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Abstract

Facial movements of others during verbal and social interaction are often too rapid to be faced and/or processed in time by numerous children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which could contribute to their face-to-face interaction peculiarities. We wish here to measure the effect of reducing the speed of one's facial dynamics on the visual exploration of the face by children with ASD. Twenty-three children with ASD and 29 typically-developing control children matched for chronological age passively viewed a video of a speaker telling a story at various velocities, i.e., a real-time speed and two slowed-down speeds. The visual scene was divided into four areas of interest (AOI): face, mouth, eyes, and outside the face. With an eye-tracking system, we measured the percentage of total fixation duration per AOI and the number and mean duration of the visual fixations made on each AOI. In children with ASD, the mean duration of visual fixations on the mouth region, which correlated with their verbal level, increased at slowed-down velocity compared with the real-time one, a finding which parallels a result also found in the control children. These findings strengthen the therapeutic potential of slowness for enhancing verbal and language abilities in children with ASD.

Keywords

attention to mouthautism spectrum disordereye-trackingmean duration of fixationslowness
Type
Regular Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , August 2021 , pp. 1006 - 1015
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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