Qualitative impairments in social interactions is one of the problems children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) faced with. In a normal development there is a connection between the points the...Show moreQualitative impairments in social interactions is one of the problems children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) faced with. In a normal development there is a connection between the points the eyes are fixated on and the child’s social behavior. Previous research has found that children with ASD have atypical eye contact. The thesis of this present study was: “Can fixation on different emotions be related to social dysfunctioning and connected to autistic characteristics of young children and can the Theory of Mind (ToM) be used to explain this? The sample consisted of 18 children between 3,5 and 6 years old,with varying degrees of autistic behavior The research was based on a number of ASD-characteristics, the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) was used for this. The social cognition was measured by the ToM tasks from the NEPSY. The visual fixation patterns during watching videos of different emotions by these children were registered by the Tobii application. The results of the study show children with more autistic characteristics scored significantly different on fixation on objects, fixation on eyes (when they have a low score on Social Awareness) and Joint Attention (by a low score on Social Communication), but they did not show less attention to fixation on social areas (total fixation duration on faces, eyes, mouth and Joint Attention). So the fixation on different emotions can in specifics ways be connect to social dysfunctioning. No association was found between the fixation and the ToM. It is strongly recommended tot replicated this research, comparing a far larger clinical group of children with ASD to a control group. In this additional research more theories should be used to explain results and more. The additional research may well fully explain ASD in future, as a basis for developing suitable treatment, so children with ASD can develop optimally.Show less
