Seeing the same faces repeatedly can negatively affect autistic children, especially in social situations. If a teen looks away or does not pay attention, this is often interpreted as someone who isn’t interested in other people, says U-M researcher Christopher Monk.
“The present findings along with other work suggest that for many kids with ASD, it may not be just a lack of interest,” said Monk, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology and a research associate professor at the Center for Human Growth and Development.
“They may find it distressing to look at and interact with other people. If kids find it distressing to watch and engage in social situations from an early age, they will disengage from them and miss many opportunities to learn about the social world.”
Data were analyzed from 32 children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders and 56 typically developing youth. They underwent functional MRI scanning while performing a gender identification task for faces that were fearful, happy, sad or neutral.
The researchers were particularly interested in a structure called the amygdala, which indexes anxiety. Whereas youth without autism rapidly habituated or showed decreased activation over time to the faces, those with ASD showed sustained amygdale activity over time when they saw sad and neutral faces.