Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is commonly conceived as the extreme end of a continuum. Research suggests that autistic individuals outperform typically developing controls in visual search. Thus, enhanced visual search may represent an adaptive trait associated with ASD. Here, using a large general population sample (N = 608, aged 9-14 years), we…

A common example of social differences in autism spectrum disorder is poor modulation of reciprocal gaze, including reduced duration of eye contact and difficulty detecting the aim of another's gaze. It remains unclear, however, whether such differences are specific to the social domain, or are instead indicative of broader alterations in…

Impairments in postural control affect the development of motor and social skills in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This review compared the effect of different sensory conditions on static standing postural control between ASD and neurotypical individuals. Results from 19 studies indicated a large difference in postural control…

Detecting where our partners direct their gaze is an important aspect of social interaction. An atypical gaze processing has been reported in autism. However, it remains controversial whether children and adults with autism spectrum disorder interpret indirect gaze direction with typical accuracy. This study investigated whether the detection of…

We used eye-tracking to investigate the roles of enhanced discrimination and peripheral selection in superior visual search in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children with ASD were faster at visual search than their typically developing peers. However, group differences in performance and eye-movements did not vary with the level of difficulty of…

In typical development there is a bias to orient visual attention to social information. Children with ASD do not reliably demonstrate this bias, and the role of attention orienting has not been well studied. We examined attention orienting via the inhibition of return (IOR) mechanism in a spatial cueing task using social-emotional cues; we…

Purpose: To review and assess theory and research supporting DIR/Floortime™, a method proposed for treatment of young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Methods: Published materials describing the principles of DIR/Floortime™were evaluated. Published outcome research articles were assessed for the adequacy of their design and…

Prosaccade and antisaccade errors in the context of social and nonsocial stimuli were investigated in youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 19) a matched control sample (n = 19), and a small sample of youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (n = 9). Groups did not differ in error rates in the prosaccade condition for any stimulus…

A severely impaired capacity for social interaction is one of the characteristics of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Deficits in facial emotional recognition processing may be associated with this limitation. The Build-a-Face (BAF) art therapy intervention was developed to assist with emotional recognition through the viewing and…

The majority of the schools of physical education and sports in Turkey consist of three departments, which are physical education and sports teaching department, coaching education and sports management departments. All of these departments are applying similar entrance examinations, and mostly similar curriculum and learning styles to the…

We probed differences in the ability to detect and interpret social cues in adults and in children and young adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD) by investigating the effect of various social and non-social contexts on the visual exploration of pictures of natural scenes. Children and adolescents relied more on social…

This study used eye-tracking to examine visual scanning and recognition of faces by 2- and 4-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (N = 44) and typically developing (TD) controls (N = 30). TD toddlers at both age levels scanned and recognized faces similarly. Toddlers with ASD looked increasingly away from faces with age,…

Are children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but normal-range intelligence, impaired on theory of mind skills measured by responses to abstract animations in the form of a computerized cartoon? Fifty-six cases and closely matched comparisons were tested. We rated verbal responses according to the length of their descriptions, their…

This study examined progress after 1 year of treatment for children with autism who received a mean of 36 hours per week one-to-one University of California at Los Angeles Applied Behavior Analysis (UCLA ABA) treatment. Two types of service provision were compared: an intensive clinic based treatment model with all treatment personnel (N = 23),…

Recent eye tracking studies of face processing have produced differing accounts of how and whether children with autism differ from their typically developing peers. The two groups' gaze patterns appear to differ for dynamic videos of social scenes, but not for static photos of isolated individuals. The present study replicated and extended…