Objective Measurement of Social Gaze and Smile Behaviors in Children with Suspected Autism Spectrum Disorder During Administration of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, 2nd Edition.

DIAGNOSIS of autism; RESEARCH funding; EYE movement measurements; PARENT-child relationships; SEVERITY of illness index; SOCIAL skills; AFFECT (Psychology); FACIAL expression; CHILD behavior; CHILDREN

Best practice for the assessment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptom severity relies on clinician ratings of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, 2nd Edition (ADOS-2), but the association of these ratings with objective measures of children's social gaze and smiling is unknown. Sixty-six preschool-age children (49 boys, M = 39.97 months, SD = 10.58) with suspected ASD (61 confirmed ASD) were administered the ADOS-2 and provided social affect calibrated severity scores (SA CSS). Children's social gaze and smiling during the ADOS-2, captured with a camera contained in eyeglasses worn by the examiner and parent, were obtained via a computer vision processing pipeline. Children who gazed more at their parents (p =.04) and whose gaze at their parents involved more smiling (p =.02) received lower social affect severity scores, indicating fewer social affect symptoms, adjusted R2 =.15, p =.003. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]