Look at me: Gaze behaviour helps early recognition of autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
If a toddler does not look you in the eye, it can be a sign of difficulties in their social behaviour. At the Tampere Institute for Advanced Study, Terhi Helminen studies toddlers’ gaze behaviour and their reactions to the gaze of others to develop ways to identify as early as possible both the impairments in their social communication skills and their need of support.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow Terhi Helminen, Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology and a clinical psychologist specialized in neuropsychology, has been working long with developmental neuropsychological impairments in children, such as the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and ADHD as well as learning difficulties. In an ongoing project “Gaze at Toddler” at Tampere University, she studies toddlers with the aim of developing methods for recognizing an ASD or other developmental difficulties in children.
Autism spectrum disorder in children is usually identified at a fairly late stage, and therefore rehabilitation is not started early enough. This leads to wasting valuable time because a child’s brain is well able to change and adapt due to experience (neuroplasticity) during the first childhood years.
The face of another human being is a source of learning for us
According to Helminen, the human face is a central source of social messages. By looking at other people’s faces children learn to speak, to recognize their own and other people’s feelings and to create a connection with another person. It is typical of people with ASD that they do not direct their gaze to other people’s faces very often. Because of this, small children with ASD may not notice many social messages, which may affect their learning of linguistic, social and emotional skills.
– We study toddlers, their gaze behaviour as well as their bodily reactions to gaze. We measure their heartbeats and skin conductance levels, of which we can infer how their attention is directed and their autonomic nervous system is tuned, says Helminen.
– Our aim is to find out whether or not children start to pay more attention to other people’s faces if their parents receive more support with interaction with the child in question, and whether or not the effects are shown in the child’s bodily reactions as well.
Helminen underlines that the support for the parent-child interaction is based on developmentally appropriate child-friendly practices. The parents are instructed to follow the child’s initiations and interests as well as to gently lead the child to interact by supporting the enhancement of the child’s own social motivation.
Knowledge is needed for developing rehabilitation and therapy
After her Tampere IAS Fellowship, Helminen will continue to focus on studying how children with developmental difficulties could be supported in a best possible way.
– We should learn more about how we as adults with our own actions influence the development of children’s motivation and interest. Emotions and alertness are linked with motivation, and they can be measured as bodily reactions. Tools that enable us to measure these bodily reactions are developing rapidly. We need more knowledge to be able to select the essential elements in rehabilitation or therapy that best support the child in question.
Keywords: Autism, autism spectrum, learning difficulties, Tampere University, Tampere IAS