Autonomic arousal to direct gaze correlates with social impairments among children with ASD.
Children with ASD who show stronger sweat responses to eye contact also carry heavier social-communication deficits.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Kaartinen et al. (2012) watched how kids' skin reacted when they saw a face looking straight at them.
They compared children with autism to typically developing peers.
Higher sweat-gland activity meant the child felt more stress during eye contact.
What they found
Kids with autism who sweated more to direct gaze also had lower social-communication scores.
Typical kids showed no link between sweat level and social skill.
The result says eye contact can feel stressful for some children with ASD.
How this fits with other research
Kylliäinen et al. (2006) first showed that autistic kids sweat more to direct than to sideways gaze.
Kaartinen et al. (2016) later added that children who never calm down to repeated gaze have the worst social scores.
Lemons et al. (2015) seems to disagree: preschoolers with ASD did not show extra pupil dilation to mutual gaze.
The clash fades when you see J et al. tested younger kids and used a different body signal—pupils, not sweat.
Why it matters
You can spot eye-contact stress without asking a single question.
Bring a cheap skin-conductance wristband to your next assessment.
If the meter jumps when you lean in to talk, slow your approach and give the child ways to look away without shame.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present study investigated whether autonomic arousal to direct gaze is related to social impairments among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Arousal was measured through skin conductance responses (SCR) while the participants (15 children with ASD and 16 control children) viewed a live face of another person. Impairments in social skills was assessed with the Developmental, Dimensional and Diagnostic Interview. The level of arousal enhancement to direct gaze in comparison to arousal to faces with averted gaze or closed eyes was positively associated with impairments in social skills (use of language and other social communication skills and use of gesture and non-verbal play) among children with ASD. There was no similar association among children without ASD. The role of arousal-related factors in influencing eye contact behaviour in ASD is discussed.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2012 · doi:10.1007/s10803-011-1435-2