Child-friendly 'gaze test' created to identify autism in young children

Academics says they have found a stress-free way to test for autism in young children with a new ‘gaze test’ for use in Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis.

In a study paper published in the journal 'Computers in Biology and Medicine', academics describe how the new test assesses children’s gaze.

Researchers believe it is more reliable and less stressful for young children than current methods of diagnosing autism, which involves questionnaires and psychologist evaluations.

Mehrshad Sadria, who is undergoing a master's degree at the University of Waterloo in Canada worked with Professor Anita Layton to create the test.

Study co-author Professor Anita Layton said: "It is much easier for children to just look at something, like the animated face of a dog, than to fill out a questionnaire or be evaluated by a psychologist.

"Also, the challenge many psychologists face is that sometimes behaviors deteriorate over time, so the child might not display signs of autism, but then a few years later, something starts showing up".

The researchers created the ‘gaze test’ based on a typical trait displayed by autistic people that appears to evaluate other people's faces in a specific way.

"[T]he overt attention with which individuals with ASD orient and direct to faces, as well as the manners by which they visually explore faces and interpret gaze information, appears to exhibit characteristics distinct from [typical development] individuals," the study authors reported.

Researchers worked with 17 autistic children (with an average age of five and a half years-old) and 23 non-autistic children of a similar age.

The children were individually shown 44 photographs of different faces on a screen which was linked to an eye tracking system.

This identified where each child's gaze went first and to which areas of the face their gaze went next.

The academics looked at areas of interest that a child's gaze might fix: under the right eye, on the right eye, under the left eye, on the left eye, on the nose, on the mouth, and on other parts of the screen.

Researchers found, for example, that children with ASD spent “significantly more time looking at the mouth” than the children who did not have ASD.

Professor Anita Layton was keen to emphasize the new test is not just about whether a child is focusing on the mouth or eyes but is about "how a child looks at everything."

To read the paper published in Computers in Biology and Medicine click here