The social communicative deficits and repetitive behaviours seen in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may be affected by altered stimulus salience and reward attribution. The present study used eye tracking and a behavioural measure to index effort expenditure, arousal, and attention, during viewing of images depicting social scenes and…

Facilitative linguistic input directly connected to children's interest and focus of attention has become a recommended component of interventions for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This longitudinal correlational study used two assessment time points and examined the association between parental undemanding…

Fourteen mother-child dyads involving preschool children with autism and 14 matched dyads of typically developing children and mothers were observed during free play. Mothers of autistic children directed verbalizations to something within the child's focus of attention as often as other mothers. They directed verbalizations to something not…