Observing Visual Attention and Writing Behaviors During a Writing Assessment: Comparing Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder to Peers with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Typically Developing Peers.
Kids with autism or ADHD look at their writing less, and that split-second disengagement predicts weaker stories.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Zajic et al. (2021) filmed kids while they wrote a story.
They compared three groups: autism, ADHD, and typically developing peers.
Cameras tracked where kids looked and how long they wrote.
What they found
Kids with autism spent less time looking at their draft paper.
Less looking linked to lower writing scores and more autism traits.
The ADHD group showed a similar drop in draft engagement.
How this fits with other research
Zajic et al. (2020) saw the same trio plan differently.
That study found typical kids used the outline more; this one finds they stay on the draft longer.
Together they show the writing gap starts before the first word.
Rosello et al. (2022) pooled 34 studies and flagged that autism plus ADHD means tougher cognitive loads; our target gives a live snapshot of that load during one school task.
Why it matters
When a child stares at the wall instead of the page, it is data.
Note where eyes go during your next writing probe.
If gaze stays off the draft, pause the timer, offer a visual cue, or shorten the demand.
Small shifts in attention can protect both quality and frustration.
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Join Free →During the next writing probe, mark each ten-second interval the eyes leave the page; stop at three marks and give a scripted look-back prompt.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate heterogeneous writing skills that are generally lower than their typically developing (TD) peers and similar to peers with attention difficulties like attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Recent evidence suggests children with ASD spend less time engaging in writing tasks compared to their peers, but previous studies have not examined engagement specifically within the writing task environment. This study used video observation data collected from 121 school-age children (60 children with ASD, 32 children with ADHD, and 29 TD children) to compare differences in visual attention and writing task behaviors and relationships between task behaviors and age, cognitive skills, and ASD and ADHD symptom severity. Findings indicated that groups mostly spent time looking at and writing on the draft, though this was lowest in the ASD group. No differences were found between the ASD and ADHD groups after accounting for task behavior durations as percentages of total used task time. Groups spent little time looking at their outlines and looking away from the task, with all groups spending relatively more time looking at the task picture. Time spent engaged with the draft showed a positive relationship with writing performance across groups, but a negative relationship between time spent looking at the task picture and writing performance only appeared for the ADHD group. The ASD and ADHD groups showed negative associations between draft engagement and ASD symptom severity but not ADHD symptom severity. Implications are discussed for understanding writing task engagement in research and instructional contexts. LAY SUMMARY: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate variable writing skills. Here, we examine how children with ASD engage during a writing task by using video observation data to compare their engagement to peers with and without attention difficulties. Findings indicate (a) lower draft engagement and similar task disengagement in children with ASD compared to their peers and (b) moderate-to-strong relationships between writing scores and ASD symptom severity with within-task engagement in children with ASD and their peers with attention difficulties.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2021 · doi:10.1002/aur.2383