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A variety of eye tracking studies have demonstrated that young children with ASD gaze at images and movies of social interactions differently than typically developing children. These findings have supported the hypothesis that gaze behavior differences are generated by a weaker preference for social stimuli in ASD children. The hypothesis assumes that gaze differences are not caused by abnormalities in oculomotor function including saccade frequency and kinematics. Previous studies of oculomotor function have mostly been performed with school‐age children, adolescents, and adults using visual search, anti‐saccade, and gap saccade tasks that are less suitable for young pre‐school children. Here, we examined oculomotor function in 144 children (90 with ASD and 54 controls), 1–10‐years‐old, as they watched two animated movies interleaved with the presentation of multiple salient stimuli that elicited saccades‐to‐targets. The results revealed that the number of fixations, fixation duration, number of saccades, saccade duration, saccade accuracy, and saccade latency did not differ significantly across groups. Minor initial differences in saccade peak velocity were not supported by analysis with a linear mixed model. These findings suggest that most children with ASD exhibit similar oculomotor function to that of controls, when performing saccades‐to‐targets or freely viewing child‐friendly movies. This suggests that previously reported gaze abnormalities in children with ASD are not due to underlying oculomotor deficiencies. Lay Summary This study demonstrates that children with ASD perform similar eye movements to those of controls when freely observing movies or making eye movements to targets. Similar results were apparent across groups in the number of eye movements, their accuracy, duration, and other measures that assess eye movement control. These findings are important for interpreting previously reported differences in gaze behavior of children with ASD, which are likely due to atypical social preferences rather than impaired control of eye movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Motor rehabilitation is a central contributor to motor recovery after stroke. Rehabilitation could be hampered by stroke-associated cognitive impairments such as the decreased ability to follow instructions. Rapid instructed task learning (RITL) was never directly studied in older adults and subjects with stroke. The aim of this study was to assess RITL following stroke and its underlying cognitive determinants., Method: Thirty-one subjects with chronic stroke and 36 age-matched controls completed a computerized cognitive examination that included an antisaccade task for measuring prepotent inhibition and processing speed and stimulus-response association task (NEXT) for measuring RITL and proactive inhibition., Results: RITL abilities were impaired after stroke ( d = 0.72), together with prepotent inhibition ( d = 0.71) and processing speed ( d = 1.12). A correlation analysis revealed that RITL is associated with prepotent inhibition abilities and with processing speed., Conclusions: Subjects with stroke show impairments in the ability to follow instructions, that may be related to their impaired prepotent inhibition and processing speed. The causal effect of RITL impairments on the responsivity to rehabilitation and on motor recovery should be examined. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A variety of eye tracking studies have demonstrated that young children with ASD gaze at images and movies of social interactions differently than typically developing children. These findings have supported the hypothesis that gaze behavior differences are generated by a weaker preference for social stimuli in ASD children. The hypothesis assumes that gaze differences are not caused by abnormalities in oculomotor function including saccade frequency and kinematics. Previous studies of oculomotor function have mostly been performed with school-age children, adolescents, and adults using visual search, anti-saccade, and gap saccade tasks that are less suitable for young pre-school children. Here, we examined oculomotor function in 144 children (90 with ASD and 54 controls), 1-10-years-old, as they watched two animated movies interleaved with the presentation of multiple salient stimuli that elicited saccades-to-targets. The results revealed that the number of fixations, fixation duration, number of saccades, saccade duration, saccade accuracy, and saccade latency did not differ significantly across groups. Minor initial differences in saccade peak velocity were not supported by analysis with a linear mixed model. These findings suggest that most children with ASD exhibit similar oculomotor function to that of controls, when performing saccades-to-targets or freely viewing child-friendly movies. This suggests that previously reported gaze abnormalities in children with ASD are not due to underlying oculomotor deficiencies. LAY SUMMARY: This study demonstrates that children with ASD perform similar eye movements to those of controls when freely observing movies or making eye movements to targets. Similar results were apparent across groups in the number of eye movements, their accuracy, duration, and other measures that assess eye movement control. These findings are important for interpreting previously reported differences in gaze behavior of children with ASD, which are likely due to atypical social preferences rather than impaired control of eye movements., (© 2021 International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC.)