Abstract：
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with life-long challenges with social cognition, and one of its earliest and most common manifestations is atypical joint attention, which is a pivotal skill in social-cognitive and linguistic development. Early interventions for ASD children often focus on training initiation of joint attention (IJA) and response to joint attention bids (RJA), which are important for social communication and cognition. Here, we used functional near-infrared spectroscopy and behavioral measures to test typically developing (TD, n = 17) and ASD children (n = 18), to address the relationship between the neural correlates of RJA and social-communicative behavior. Group-level differences were present for RJA-specific activation over right temporal sites, where TD children showed higher levels of activation during RJA than ASD children, whereas the two groups did not differ in the control condition. Correlations between neural activation and behavioral traits suggest that, in ASD children, neural activation during RJA is related to the frequency of RJA behavior when the former is measured over left temporal sites, and to social affect symptoms when considered for right temporal sites. Possible implications of the evidenced correlations are discussed.
摘要：
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）与社会认知的终身挑战有关，它最早和最常见的表现之一是非典型的联合注意力，这是社会认知和语言发展的关键技能。对ASD儿童的早期干预通常侧重于联合关注（IJA）的培训启动和对联合关注出价的响应（RJA）。这对社会交往和认知都很重要。这里,我们使用功能近红外光谱和行为测量来测试典型的发展(TD，n=17)和ASD儿童(n=18)，探讨RJA的神经相关性与社会交际行为之间的关系。RJA特异性激活在右侧颞叶位点存在组水平差异，TD儿童在RJA期间比ASD儿童表现出更高的激活水平，而两组在对照条件上没有差异。神经激活和行为特征之间的相关性表明，在ASD儿童中，RJA期间的神经激活与RJA行为的频率有关，当前者在左颞叶部位测量时，并在考虑正确的颞部部位时产生社会影响症状。讨论了已证明的相关性的可能含义。
