Early Infant Gaze Patterns in Interaction: Considering Maternal Depression among Infants at Elevated and Typical Likelihood of Autism Restricted; Files Only

Abstract

The first months of life are a crucial time for infants’ social development. One of the earliest ways infants are able to exert influence on their social environments and interactions is through control of their gaze. Certain features of caregivers’ behavior during interaction have been shown to sustain infants’ gaze and visual attention, thus contributing to the overall frequency and quality of infants’ social exposures and learning (Propper & Moore, 2006). Infants who spend more time sharing eye-contact, gaze, and attention with their caregivers have more opportunities to engage in social learning – which is crucial in supporting development across domains (Safyer et al., 2020; Niedzwiecka et al., 2018). The present study considered two contexts in which early social engagement might be disrupted – infant autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and maternal postpartum depression (PPD). Given caregivers’ role in scaffolding social engagement in typical development, exploring early caregiver-infant interaction may provide avenues for supporting social development and engagement for children diagnosed with autism. We compared the eye-looking behavior of infants with typical- and elevated-likelihoods of developing autism (TL-ASD & EL-ASD, respectively), with elevated-likelihood status being based upon the autism diagnosis of an older sibling. Infants’ overall duration of eye-looking did not significantly differ across ASD likelihood groups (MEL-ASD = 0.4588, MTL-ASD = 0.5117, t = 1.25, p = 0.212). We found no significant main effects or interactions between ASD likelihood and caregiver depressive symptoms on eye-looking, regardless of whether EPDS scores was treated as continuous or dichotomous (p = 0.182, p = 0.121, respectively). However, visual inspection of data suggests maternal depressive symptoms might relate to EL-ASD infants’ eye-looking differently than TL-ASD infants’ eye-looking. The present study helps to further underscore the critical nature of social environments for early development in ASD. These findings, pending investigation within a larger sample, have implications for early interventions to support infants at elevated likelihood of autism.

Table of Contents

Introduction.............................................................1

Method.....................................................................7

Results....................................................................10

Discussion...............................................................12

Limitations and Future Directions...........................14

Implications and Conclusions..................................15

References................................................................16

Appendix..................................................................22

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Psychology
Subfield / Discipline	Clinical Psychology
Degree	B.S.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Psychology, Social Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Developmental
Keyword	Postpartum Depression Autism
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Dr. Sherryl H. Goodman, Emory University
Committee Members	Dr. Elizabeth Kim, Emory University Dr. Ho Jin Kim, Emory University

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