Impairments in social communication skills are one of the earliest signs of autism. One main feature of young autistic children is that they do not look at other people’s faces and eyes as much as typically developing children. In the project, the development of self-regulation and social interaction, namely facial interaction in young autistic children or children with increased likelihood of autsim is studied.
Current project: Gaze at Toddler
In Gaze at Toddler -project, we will investigate whether the abnormal responses to faces and eye contact can aid the early detection of autism. The first aim is to examine psychophysiological responses to direct gaze in 16- to 18-month-old toddlers who will later either develop typically or get diagnosed with autsim or other neurodevelopmental disorders. The second aim is to investigate whether the parental guidance would increase the toddler’s self-regulation skills, facial interaction and level of engagement in toddler with autism or autistic traits.
Previous project: Autism and Gaze
In our previous Autism and Gaze -project, we investigated psychophysiological responses to gaze stimuli from 3- to 6-year-old autistic children and their peers without autism. We found autism-specific lack of attentional heart rate orienting response to direct gaze. We also found that autistic children do not have typical approach motivation -related brain activity (left-sided frontal EEG asymmetry) to direct gaze.
In the previous project, we also piloted a parent-led facial interaction-specific intervention. In the intervention, the parents were trained to motivate their children to orient toward faces in everyday situations. The findings indicated that the parent-led intervention improved the use of facial interaction in short-term (6-month) follow-up and also the level of engagement increased in the long-term (24 month) follow-up.
Research group
Anneli Kylliäinen, PhD, Academy Research Fellow, Principal investigator
Terhi Helminen, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher, Neuropsychologist
Fiia Takio, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher, Neuropsychologist
Tiia Itäjarvi, M.A., PhD Student,
Elina Husu, M.A., PhD Student
National collaborators
Neuropsychologist Mari Muuvila, Child Psychiatry Unit, Tampere University Hospital
Autism spectrum specialized nurse Anneli Koskinen, Pediatric Neurology Unit, Tampere University Hospital
Docent Jukka Leppänen, Infant Cognition Laboratory, Tampere University
Professor, Dr. Jari Hietanen, Human Information Processing (HIP) Laboratory, Tampere University
Professor Johanna Ruusuvuori, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University
Docent Kai Eriksson, MD, PhD and Pediatric Neurologist, Pediatric Neurology Unit, Tampere University Hospital. Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University
MD, Dr. Outi Saarenpää-Heikkilä, Pediatric Neurology Unit, Tampere University Hospital. Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University
Dr. Tuire Sannisto, City of Tampere
International collaborators
Advisory board:
Professor Tony Charman, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College, London, UK
Research Fellow Emily Jones, CBCD, Birkbeck College, London of university, UK
Dr. Sue Fletcher-Watson, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Dr. Petra Warreyn, Ghent University, Belgium
Other international collaborators:
Professor Connie Kasari, University of California, Los Angeles, US
Research Fellow, Dr. Atsushi Senju, CBCD, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK
Post doc researcher, Dr. Angelina Vernétti, Yale Child Study Center, Yale University, US