Orienting to and away from the eyes in infants at high likelihood for autism when scanning faces.
High-likelihood babies look less at eyes because they are slow to find them and quick to leave—so teach eye contact early and directly.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Wang et al. (2025) watched high-likelihood infants while they looked at faces on a screen. The team timed how long each baby took to first look at the eyes and how long they stayed there.
They compared these babies to infants with no family history of autism. All babies were younger than two years.
What they found
The high-likelihood babies looked at eyes far less. They were slow to move their gaze toward eyes and quick to move it away.
The data point to two separate problems: the babies both ignore eyes and avoid them once found.
How this fits with other research
Ma et al. (2021) pooled many eye-tracking studies and found less eye-looking in autism across all ages and cultures. The new infant data fit inside that big picture.
Lemons et al. (2015) saw no sign of gaze aversion in diagnosed preschoolers. That looks like a clash, but the kids in J's study were older and already had a diagnosis. Early brain change may turn simple indifference into later avoidance.
Wang et al. (2023) showed that making a task active can raise eye gaze in autistic preschoolers. This gives hope that later training can partly fix the early orienting gap Qiandong found.
Why it matters
Do not wait for eye contact to appear on its own. Start explicit teaching early: use brief, fun trials that reward looking at your eyes. Pair the teaching with active games like face matching to keep the child's interest high. Track both how fast the child looks to eyes and how long they stay there.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study employed eye-tracking technology to investigate the mechanisms underlying reduced gaze towards the eyes in infants at high likelihood (HL) for autism, specifically examining whether it results from avoidance triggered by heightened arousal when looking at the eyes or due to indifference to the eyes (i.e., unwilling to orient to the eyes). Infants at HL for autism and typically developing (TD) infants aged within 24 months were tested. In the experiment, participants' gaze was initially guided to the eye or mouth region immediately before the onset of the face. Latency to orient away from the guided regions, latency to orient to the eyes, and the location of the secondary fixation following the onset of the face were measured. The results showed that: (1) The HL infants looked less at eyes than TD infants; (2) Compared with TD infants, HL infants oriented towards eyes more slowly after being guided to the mouth; (3) After being guided to the eyes, HL infants' secondary fixation fell less in the eye region, and their latency to orient away from the eyes was also tended to be shorter. These results suggest that reduced eye-looking time was presented in HL infants, which was further explained by both eye avoidance and indifference to the eyes. Our study contributes theoretically to understanding the atypical face scanning pattern in autistic people and its related underlying mechanisms. Furthermore, our study provides important insights into the development of early screening tools and intervention protocols for autistic people.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2025 · doi:10.1002/aur.3270