BackgroundDifficulties with executive functioning (EF) are common in individuals with a range of developmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Interventions that target underlying mechanisms of EF early in development could be broadly beneficial, but require infant markers of such mechanisms in order to be feasible. Prospective studies of infants at high familial risk (HR) for ASD have revealed a surprising tendency for HR toddlers to show longer epochs of attention to faces than low-risk (LR) controls. In typical development, decreases in look durations towards the end of the first year of life are driven by the development of executive attention—a foundational component of EF. Here, we test the hypothesis that prolonged attention to visual stimuli (including faces) in HR toddlers reflects early differences in the development of executive attention.
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