Young children with autism spectrum disorder do not preferentially attend to biological motion.

The team showed point-light videos to the kids. Half had ASD. Half were typical.

White dots moved like a person walking. No face. No sound. Just motion.

Kids sat on a parent's lap and watched. An eye tracker recorded where they looked.

Typical kids looked longer at the walking dots. ASD kids looked the same at walking dots and scrambled dots.

They did not choose human motion. The preference was missing.

Lortie et al. (2017) found the same gap in sound. ASD kids heard voices but did not turn toward them. Together the studies show the problem is not just vision.

Harrop et al. (2018) adds a twist. ASD girls still looked at faces, but ASD boys did not. So the motion finding may be strongest for boys. Check sex in your own data.

Spriggs et al. (2015) tracked babies who later got ASD. Eye interest dropped over the study period and never came back. The motion gap seen here may grow from that earlier eye decline.

If a child does not notice people moving, he will miss social cues. You can teach it. Start sessions with short point-light games. Use a tablet app that makes the dots dance when the child looks at them. Pair the motion with a favorite song. After a week, add real people walking across the room. Reinforce eye contact with the walker. The study says the brain will not do this alone. You have to build it step by step.