No evidence for differential saccadic adaptation in children and adults with an autism spectrum diagnosis.

Background: Altered patterns of eye-movements during scene exploration, and atypical gaze preferences in social settings, have long been noted as features of the Autism phenotype. While these are typically attributed to differences in social engagement and interests (e.g., preferences for inanimate objects over face stimuli), there are also reports of differential saccade measures to non-social stimuli, raising the possibility that fundamental differences in visuo-sensorimotor processing may be at play. Here, we tested the plasticity of the eye-movement system using a classic saccade-adaptation paradigm to assess whether individuals with ASD make typical adjustments to their eye-movements in response to experimentally introduced errors. Saccade adaptation can be measured in infants as young as 10 months, raising the possibility that such measures could be useful as early neuro-markers of ASD risk. Methods: Saccade amplitudes were measured while children and adults with ASD (N = 41) and age-matched typically developing (TD) individuals (N = 68) made rapid eye-movements to peripherally presented targets. During adaptation trials, the target was relocated from 20-degrees to 15-degrees from fixation once a saccade to the original target location was initiated, a manipulation that leads to systematic reduction in saccade amplitudes in typical observers. Results: Neither children nor adults with ASD showed any differences relative to TD peers in their abilities to appropriately adapt saccades in the face of persistently introduced errors. Conclusion: Of the three studies to date of saccade adaptation in ASD, none have shown deficits in saccade adaptation that are sufficient to generalize to the whole or a subgroup of the ASD population. Unlike prior studies, we found no evidence for a slower adaptation rate during the early adaptation phase, and no of evidence greater variance of saccade amplitudes in ASD. In post hoc analysis, there was evidence for larger primary saccades to non-adapted targets, a finding requiring replication in future work.

Resolution of impaired multisensory processing in autism and the cost of switching sensory modality.

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit alterations in multisensory processing, which may contribute to the prevalence of social and communicative deficits in this population. Resolution of multisensory deficits has been observed in teenagers with ASD for complex, social speech stimuli; however, whether this resolution extends to more basic multisensory processing deficits remains unclear. Here, in a cohort of 364 participants we show using simple, non-social audiovisual stimuli that deficits in multisensory processing observed in high-functioning children and teenagers with ASD are not evident in adults with the disorder. Computational modelling indicated that multisensory processing transitions from a default state of competition to one of facilitation, and that this transition is delayed in ASD. Further analysis revealed group differences in how sensory channels are weighted, and how this is impacted by preceding cross-sensory inputs. Our findings indicate that there is a complex and dynamic interplay among the sensory systems that differs considerably in individuals with ASD.