[P2-7] Poor Gazing Behaviors in 1-month-old Infants Can Provide Predictions That They Will Be Diagnosed With Autism Spectrum Disorder
[Introduction] Visual acuity of neonates is immature. It is generally considered that they have approximately 20/200 vision. Still gazing behaviors of early infants, such like fixation and tracking eye movement, mean a sign of curiosity to their families or surroundings and are important as communication manners. We sometimes met infants with poor gazing behaviors at the time of 1 month checkup. However, we had not cared about such infants because of lack of understanding their prognosis. [Cases and Results] In the present report, we prospectively followed 4 infants with poor gazing behaviors on 1-month-old for 4 years in order to ascertain their developmental courses. All of them were boys and commonly had the characteristics of poor attention to the other’s eyes on 2-year-old. After all, they were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) on 3-4-year-old in accordance with DSM-IV-TR and Childhood Autism Rating Scales. [Discussion] In 2013, Jones et al. showed that infants with autism gradually lost attention to the other’s eyes during 2-6-month-old by visual scanning measured with eye-tracking equipment. In the present 4 infants, poor gazing behaviors were detected earlier. On the other hand, their grade of ASD was not so severe. It seems that such abnormality represents possession of autistic characteristics, not severity. [Conclusions] It was suggested that poor gazing behaviors in 1-month-old infants can be one of important predictors for early diagnosis of ASD and that we need to followed up such infants carefully while verifying their development and behaviors.