It turns out that babies with superior perception may be more likely to develop autism. Scientists have found that these traits appear early in development and that differences in perceptual skill appear before the onset of clinical symptoms for autism.

"The prominence of social interaction and communication problems later in development were very much suggestive of a specific 'social brain' deficit," said Teodora Gliga, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Evidence is now accumulating for early differences in a non-social motor and perceptual abilities, which calls for a reassessment of developmental theories of autism."

In this latest study, the researchers examined infants known to be at higher risk of autism based on the diagnosis of an older sibling. About 20 percent of younger siblings are diagnosed with autism themselves, and another 30 percent show elevated levels of autism symptoms.

The researchers took advantage of the fact that infants will spontaneously orient their gaze to anything that pops out in a visual scene. For example: the letter S in a group of X's. In order to test their perception, the researchers used an eye tracker to record the infants' gazes as they were presented with letters on a screen.

So what did they find? Infants with enhanced visual searching ability at 9 months old had more emergent autism symptoms at 15 months and 2 years. This suggests that the unusual perceptual ability of those infants is linked to emerging autism.

"We know now that we have to give more attention to possible differences in the development of sensation and perception," said Gliga. "It is the sensory unpredictability of social interaction, but also of many other aspects of daily life, that people with autism most often report as distressing, and we hope this study and others will bring autism research questions closer to the needs of those directly affected."

The findings are published in the journal Current Biology.

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