Multimodal pathways used to achieve joint attention (JA) have yet to be studied in infants with a familial history of ASD.

The study explores behaviors via Zoom in infants with a familial history of ASD (FH+), focusing on gaze and manual actions.

Findings show no differences in JA behaviors, however, FH+ infants interact with objects less, affecting pathways to JA.

FH+ parents seem to adapt their JA strategies, shifting to a focus on face cues, in ways that may be driving early JA.

Joint attention (JA) is an early-developing behavior that allows caregivers and infants to share focus on an object. Deficits in JA, as measured through face-following pathways, are a defining feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and are observable as early as 12 months of age in infants later diagnosed with ASD. However, recent evidence suggests that JA may be achieved through hand-following pathways by children with and without ASD. Development of JA through multimodal pathways has yet to be studied in infants with an increased likelihood of developing ASD. The current study investigated how 6-, 9- and 12-month-old infants with (FH+) and without (FH-) a family history of ASD engaged in JA. Parent-infant dyads played at home while we recorded the interaction over Zoom and later offline coded for hand movements and gaze. FH+ and FH- infants spent similar amounts of time in JA with their parents, but the cues available before JA were different. Parents of FH+ infants did more work to establish JA and used more face-following than hand-following pathways compared to parents of FH- infants, likely reflecting differences in infant motor or social behavior. These results suggest that early motor differences between FH+ and FH- infants may cascade into differences in social coordination.

Autism

Infancy

Joint attention

Naturalistic play

Dyadic interaction

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.