Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) attend typically to faces and objects presented within their picture communication systems.
Autistic children look at faces and objects in picture symbols exactly like typical kids, so symbol-based systems are safe to use.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team showed picture symbols to the kids with autism and 20 typical kids.
Each child looked at PECS-style cards while an eye-tracker recorded every glance.
The goal: see if autistic kids look at faces or objects in symbols differently.
What they found
Both groups spent the same time looking at faces and objects.
No extra staring at parts, no skipping of faces—patterns were identical.
The authors conclude that picture symbols do not confuse autistic vision.
How this fits with other research
Ahlborn et al. (2008) saw "circumscribed" detail-locked looking in autism. The new study used simpler, single-symbol cards, so attention spread out and the difference vanished.
Hartley et al. (2015) showed minimally-verbal autistic kids can use photos to find real toys. Together, the two papers support giving photos or color cards in PECS.
Begeer et al. (2006) found typical face gaze when kids were told the face mattered. Likewise, K et al. found typical gaze once the face sat inside a meaningful symbol.
Why it matters
You can stop worrying that autistic learners will mis-read picture symbols. Use photos, color cards, or line icons—eye-tracking says they will scan them the same way peers do. Just keep the picture clear and uncluttered; busy scenes may still pull kids into piece-by-piece viewing.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may require interventions for communication difficulties. One type of intervention is picture communication symbols which are proposed to improve comprehension of linguistic input for children with ASD. However, atypical attention to faces and objects is widely reported across the autism spectrum for several types of stimuli. METHOD: In this study we used eye-tracking methodology to explore fixation duration and time taken to fixate on the object and face areas within picture communication symbols. Twenty-one children with ASD were compared with typically developing matched groups. RESULTS: Children with ASD were shown to have similar fixation patterns on face and object areas compared with typically developing matched groups. CONCLUSIONS: It is proposed that children with ASD attend to the images in a manner that does not differentiate them from typically developing individuals. Therefore children with and without autism have the same opportunity to encode the available information. We discuss what this may imply for interventions using picture symbols.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2014 · doi:10.1111/jir.12043