20649
Social Attention As a Baseline Measure of Social Motivation in Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Friday, May 15, 2015: 5:30 PM-7:00 PM
Imperial Ballroom (Grand America Hotel)
J. Bradshaw1, T. Vernon2, A. D. Navab2, E. J. Horowitz3 and T. C. German3, (1)Clinical, Counseling, and School Psychology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, (2)Koegel Autism Center, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, (3)Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA
Background:  Diminished social attention is a well-established early-emerging feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Decreased eye contact is among the earliest observable behaviors in toddlers and children with ASD and eye-tracking technology has captured decreased attention to social stimuli as one of the earliest behavioral indicators of ASD in infancy (Chawarska, Macari, & Shic, 2013; Jones & Klin, 2013). It is suggested that these patterns of attenuated social attention are indicative of reduced social reward sensitivity and reduced social motivation, a core feature of ASD (Chevallier et al., 2012). A greater understanding of how social motivation is related to the behavioral manifestation of autism symptoms could elucidate developmental pathways contributing to social-communicative skills and reveal behavioral profiles that uniquely predict differential treatment outcome.

Objectives:   The current study presents baseline data from an early intervention study in which eye-tracking was used as a behavioral indicator of social motivation prior to onset of treatment in a group of 24-48-month-old toddlers with ASD. Baseline levels of social motivation were measured and compared to performance of age-matched typically developing toddlers. Social attention was then compared to behavioral performance on standardized measures and parent-child interactions. 

Methods:   Participants were 24-48-month-old toddlers with ASD and age-matched typically developing (TD) toddlers. All participants were presented with a social preference paradigm modeled after the social preference task created by Pierce et al. (2011). Six 5 s videos depicted clips of children engaging in high-motion behaviors presented side-by-side with clips of non-social high-motion geometric patterns. Social preference ratios across the six videos were calculated for each participant and compared both between and within groups. Within-group analyses for participants with ASD included correlations between social preference ratios and standardized measures (ADOS, Mullen Scales of Early Learning, and Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales) and social-communication during naturalistic parent-child interactions.

Results:   Results were consistent with Pierce et al. (2011) demonstrating a significantly lower mean social preference ratio for the ASD group (M=.57; SD = .08) compared to the TD group (M=.70; SD=.12). Additionally, social preference ratios were negatively correlated with parent-reported socialization and positively correlated with frequency of undirected vocalizations during naturalistic parent-child interactions. Finally, total attention to any part of the screen during this task was moderately associated with nonverbal developmental quotient, expressive language, and fewer autism symptoms. 

Conclusions:  These results extend previous findings and suggest that toddlers with ASD have significantly lower baseline levels of social motivation than TD toddlers measured through a simple social preference task. Additionally, it provides evidence for hypotheses that increased social motivation may serve as a protective factor associated with more advanced social-communicative skills and decreased autism symptomology that may lead to enhanced treatment effectiveness. Results also suggest that overall attention may be associated with autism severity and therefore could play a mediating role in tasks attempting to capture social motivation in this population. Additional post-intervention data will enhance these findings and reveal how social motivation may be a prognostic indicator for treatment outcome for toddlers with ASD.