Orienting in response to gaze and the social use of gaze among children with autism spectrum disorder.

Rombough et al. (2013) watched late-elementary kids with and without autism. Each child sat at a screen. A face popped up, then looked left or right. Sometimes only eyes moved. Other times arrows or objects competed for attention.

The team asked two questions. Do autistic kids automatically follow gaze? Can they choose to follow gaze when arrows pull them away?

Automatic cueing worked fine. Both groups turned their eyes toward the gazed-at spot within a split second. The autism group did not lag here.

Choice was the problem. When arrows or toys appeared at the same time, autistic kids often looked at the arrows instead of the eyes. Picking the social cue over the shiny distracter was hard for them.

Mount et al. (2011) saw the same intact automatic cueing two years earlier. Their data match the new automatic result, giving a clean replication.

Bigham et al. (2013) seems to disagree. They found weaker reflexive gaze following in preschoolers with autism. The clash fades when you notice age: preschool brains may still be on an atypical path; by late-elementary the reflex is online but selection remains shaky.

Hou et al. (2024) widens the lens. They tracked wandering eye paths across more ages and linked extra gaze jumps to weaker context learning. Their scan-path story updates the 2013 paper: the issue is not just “choose eyes over arrows,” but building stable expectancies about where social meaning sits.

Automatic gaze following is intact, so don’t waste minutes drilling “look where I look.” Instead, teach kids to pick eyes when arrows, toys, or tablets compete. Start with one clear social cue and one dull distracter, then fade distracter salience up. Practice in real play: hold a favored toy next to your face, prompt eye shift, then deliver the item. Over time, the child learns that eyes, not objects, hold the next clue.