A systematic review and meta-analysis of atypical visual attention towards non-social stimuli in preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Systematic review and meta-analysis of non-randomized observational case-control eye-tracking studies
PubMed 39503176 · doi:10.1002/aur.3261
What was done
Systematic review and meta-analysis of 31 eye-tracking studies comparing visual attention toward non-social stimuli between preschool children (under 5 years of age) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) controls. Subgroup analyses compared stimuli related to common circumscribed interests (CIs) with non-CI stimuli. Meta-regressions assessed the moderating effects of age, sex, stimulus dimension, nonverbal developmental quotient, and autism symptom severity.
What was found
Overall, preschoolers with ASD spent significantly more visual attention on non-social stimuli than TD controls, with a small effect size (g = 0.39). When categorized by stimulus content, attention was significantly higher in ASD for CI-related stimuli with a large effect size (g = 0.69), whereas studies using non-CI stimuli showed no significant difference between ASD and TD groups. None of the meta-regressions (age, sex, stimulus dimension, nonverbal DQ, symptom severity) reached statistical significance.
Why it matters
Heightened non-social attention in young autistic children appears to be driven specifically by objects matching circumscribed interests rather than a generalized bias toward non-social scenes.
Limits
The abstract does not provide total participant sample size, confidence intervals, or specific statistical test values for the non-significant analyses. Categorization of circumscribed interests was based on categories frequently reported in autistic adults, which may differ from preschoolers. All included primary eye-tracking experiments are observational case-control studies.