Autism spectrum disorders affect around 1 in 100 children in the UK. It can be characterized by difficulties in social-interaction and communication, plus a tendency to engage in repetitive behaviors. One common symptom of the disorder is not showing interest in or wanting to play with other children. However, symptoms and their severity vary widely, making diagnosis difficult.
我和我在UCSD的同事正在进行一项新的测试，以确定婴儿和幼儿一岁时是否开始表现出ASD。在测试过程中，一种称为眼睛跟踪的技术使用角膜的光反射来绘制凝视图案，而两个短视频则竞争了孩子的注意。一个视频描述了通常开发幼儿的最喜欢的话题，其他孩子在玩。第二个视频描述了一个主题对于典型的幼儿，几何形状和抽象设计更加不寻常。
Toddlers, under 30 months old when they participated, were tracked and evaluated every 6-12 months until they were 3 years old when a final diagnosis was given. At each visit licensed clinical psychologists assessed toddlers using various methods including the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) and Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS); as well as obtaining additional family and medical histories.
Across several studies of these Geometric Preference tests, and despite changes to the details of the social and geometric videos presented, an important phenomenon persists. The toddlers who spend the most time viewing the geometric patterns and the least time viewing the social video go on to be diagnosed with ASD. Further, this subset of ASD toddlers are likely to be substantially challenged by the disorder, because they consistently have more severe scores for social communicative deficits and restricted repetitive behaviors than other children with ASD.
This is the second GeoPref eye tracking test created at our Center, and this particular GeoPref test differs from the original test by the addition of social interactions between multiple children. The original social video shows children energetically moving their bodies in interesting ways, however, the kids depicted aren’t interacting with one another. In contrast, our new social video is focused mainly on kids face to face with one another, speaking together and reacting in ways that nonverbally communicate surprise, or amusement, or agreement, or disagreement.
尽管有证据表明，早期识别和治疗ASD可以改善结果，但孩子越年轻，很难确定某些异常行为是否意味着他或她在自闭症谱系中。儿科医生看到很多蹒跚学步的幼儿，他们似乎在挣扎着某些行为，但尚不清楚什么或原因。由于我们的两项地理REF测试都高度具体，因此假阳性的可能性很小，因此该工具可以为不确定的情况增加确定性。
原始的GeopRef测试的特异性很高，这些幼儿最强烈喜欢这些几何形状具有ASD。但是最初的测试不能排除ASD，因为一些带有ASD的蹒跚学步的幼儿确实观看了运动中的孩子的视频。出乎意料的是，对于新的测试不仅是ASD得分最高的所有孩子，得分最低的孩子都没有ASD。这意味着新测试不仅可以识别患有ASD的婴儿，而且还可以在某些可能有关于行为的孩子中排除ASD风险。
In this study we were also happy to find that by combining multiple GeoPref tests, we were able to identify additional toddlers with ASD, that is, two GeoPref tests were more sensitive than one. Our next step is to design a series of eye tracking tests like this one that when combined will maintain the high specificity we’ve achieved, while increasing the sensitivity. We want to be able to ensure we continue to detect severely impacted kids with our tests, whilst also being able to identify those children that are less severely impacted, but nonetheless do fall somewhere on the autism spectrum.
注释