Autism And Blinking Patterns Examined In New Study

Eyes may be the key to the soul, but the act of opening and closing them -- and the rate at which children do it -- may provide clues to the mind. According to a new study, "blinking patterns" might contain new insights into how children with autism think.

Led by Warren Jones, Ph.D., Director of Research for the Marcus Autism Center at Emory University, the study measured how young children blink when watching a video. The idea for the research originated with an observation made by graduate student Sara Shultz, of the Yale Child Study Center. "[She] saw that while kids were watching [a video], they were blinking less than before or after the video started to play," Jones told The Huffington Post. "We usually don't pay attention to blinking, so that set off a train of ideas in our minds."

Jones explained that during the moment we spend blinking, we lose visual information. Therefore, less frequent blinking can indicate that an individual is more interested by, attracted to, and engaged in whatever is going on around them.

The research team decided to use this concept to study children with autism, comparing the blinking patterns of normally developing 2-year-olds with the blinking patterns of 2-year-olds on the autism spectrum.

"This is a new tool for us to try and understand ... what kids with autism are most drawn to, what things are distracting kids from learning or what things are naturally attractive," said Jones, adding that he and his fellow researchers hope to "use those things in the case of intervention."

The children in the study were shown a video of a boy and a girl playing. The 2-year-olds who did not have autism generally blinked less frequently when watching the more emotional parts of the movie, while the autistic children blinked less frequently, by an overwhelming margin, when they were watching objects and physical movements.

Information about patterns like these could have big implications when it comes to developing new ways to interact with children who fall on the autism spectrum. "Knowing what factors are naturally driving their attention ... could help everyday learning situations," Jones told The Huffington Post.

And although parents can't really learn anything from looking at the way their kids blink -- these kind of measurements require high-tech laboratory equipment -- parsing what attracts a child's attention can help parents better understand how children with autism interact with the world.

"For parents of kids with autism, one thing that can be a struggle is ... understanding what that child's experience is like. When a kid with autism gets frustrated it's hard to know what's driving that frustration," said Jones. He hopes that this research can lend a helping hand.

Comments

[BSDebunker]

01:50 AM on 01/25/2012

I am not a researcher at Emory University, but I might as well have been. I could have saved the school much time and money had they asked me about this topic. For me, it's a no-brainer that my autistic son is far more interested in the physical world than the emotional - the ratio is about 100-1. Not to be rude, but why not research something a little more useful...

[l monroe]

09:09 AM on 12/27/2011

Educate everyone not just the children. It is a growing problem in this country. If the public learns about how to treat them, then the children will have easier lives. Simple fact I watched a grandmother unknowingly torture a child with autism by doing custodial touch which normally works with small normal children. It set him off worse, I talked her down and gave him the breathing room to act better. He gave a small giggle and laid on the floor when he calmed down.

[gramma61]

01:22 AM on 12/27/2011

They had to do a study for this? I could have told them that...That's how I always judge where my son's head is at.

[l monroe]

09:13 AM on 12/27/2011

Face it, not everybody is as smart(read common sense) as you. I have the similar problem, it made me look like a know it all. Good luck.

[gramma61]

09:44 AM on 12/27/2011

Oh I know...I've had to fight some serious battles over the years because the simple fact I was a mom with good instincts and my son's happiness was far more important then anything else.

[Godo]

10:14 AM on 12/21/2011

Does anyone know how to deal with an asperger kid? This is supossed to be a branch of autism, isn't it?

[gramma61]

01:01 AM on 12/27/2011

Yes it is..I have a son with Asperger's .

[Godo]

09:38 AM on 12/28/2011

And are you dealing with him? Any advised??

[WilmaJune]

07:36 AM on 12/16/2011

Were the children checked for possible vision problems first? It does not mention the ages of the children. The blinking patterns could change depending on the way children react emotionally to the situation. How many children were involved in the study? The article creates more questions than answers.

[Nastroje]

07:58 AM on 12/16/2011

It says 2 year olds.......

[WilmaJune]

06:44 PM on 12/18/2011

Thanks. I missed the ages.

[pvgv]

07:04 PM on 12/15/2011

While new therapies and approaches developed from this finding may prove to be helpful to some degree, I think it makes more sense to focus on preventing the neurological assaults that lead to autism spectrum disorders in the first place. For more info on suspected environmental triggers in the autism epidemic, see the following website: www.asdresearchonline.com

[egal]

11:32 PM on 12/15/2011

Unless, you know, you actually care about what the lives of the people existing on that spectrum are like and want to help or at least not hinder them in making it in this world.

Or, you know, if you like scientific findings and would prefer to focus your efforts on potential causes that don't already have mountains of evidence suggesting they're unlikely or mere cases of mistaking correlation for causation.

But I'd stick with the humane view, personally, that dismissing the efforts of families with members on the autistic spectrum to understand and nurture or mitigate (depending on their approaches/goals/needs/motivations) those differences as merely "helpful to some degree" is kind of cruel.

Not to mention regarding autistic spectrum disorders as something caused by neurological assaults suggest that the people on the spectrum are damaged when they are simply wired to think about and interact with the world (particularly--or particularly NOT--people, at the extreme end) differently. We still don't KNOW enough to justify rather unsympathetically dismissing the autistic spectrum as some sort of defect, although I'm sure that wasn't the intent.

[pvgv]

09:39 AM on 12/16/2011

Identifying and interrupting the environmental triggers of autism has much potential to help those already affected by autism spectrum disorders. I have a family member who met the diagnostic criteria for ASD at age 2, and now at age 3&1/2 he is no longer on the spectrum....his only interventions were avoiding the neurotoxins listed on that website. My intent here is to help, I don’t at all mean to diminish the humanity of those with autism spectrum disorders.

[StephenBP]

07:21 AM on 12/16/2011

There was an article in Scientific American back in Feb 2000 which told how women who had taken the drug thalidomide and had children with autism, had taken the birth defect causing drug between days 20 and 24 of their pregnancy. But in the intervening 11 years, I've never seen any follow up on that.

[Faith Walsh]

09:29 AM on 12/16/2011

Thalidomide was linked to terrible birth defects back in the 50's, like no arms or hands, it was withdrawn from the market in 1961 so I don't know exactly where that article drew it's facts from.

[timmyheather]

04:26 PM on 12/15/2011

I was super conscious of every single blink while reading this article.