Scan path differences and similarities during emotion perception in those with and without autism spectrum disorders.

The team used eye-tracking to watch how adults with and without autism looked at faces. Each person saw happy, sad, angry, and complex emotions on a screen. The computer recorded where the eyes moved first and how long they stayed on the eyes or mouth.

The goal was to see if people with autism avoid looking at the eyes during emotion tasks.

Adults with autism looked at the eyes just as much as neurotypical adults for simple emotions. The only difference showed up with complex emotions—then the autism group spent slightly less time on the eyes.

First fixations and total mouth looking were the same for both groups.

Ma et al. (2021) pooled many studies and found less eye looking in autism across all ages. Their big picture agrees with the small drop seen here for tricky emotions.

Song et al. (2016) saw a different pattern: children with autism used the eye region less only when judging fear. The target study shows the same thing can happen in adults, but only when the emotion is hard to read. Age and emotion type explain the gap.

Lemons et al. (2015) found no eye avoidance in preschoolers with autism. The current study looked at adults, so the mixed results line up—gaze patterns change as people grow.

You can stop assuming every client with autism will avoid eye contact. For basic happy or angry faces, their eyes move like anyone else’s. Save extra teaching for complex social scenes or subtle fear cues. Try brief prompts to “check the eyes” when you practice reading mixed emotions or sarcasm in role-play.