This study investigated the visual attention characteristics in 125 children between 18 and 24 months of age: 50 with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), 25 with developmental delays (DD), and 50 with typical development (TD). Systematic observation was used to examine visual attention within behavior samples. There were significant group differences on 8 of the ANOVA omnibus tests. The Dunnet T3 post-hoc tests detected significant differences between the ASD group and the DD and TD groups on 4 measures and between the ASD and TD group on 2 additional measures. The amount of times the children looked at a person's face as well as the duration and frequency measures of the children's ability to shift attention from a target object to a person's face were the most distinguishing visual attention characteristics among the 3 groups based on effect sizes. The findings of this study have important implications for continued research on the role visual attention can play in early identification of very young children with autism spectrum disorders. / A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Communication Disorders in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science. / Summer Semester, 2007. / June 24, 2007. / Visual attention, Autism / Includes bibliographical references. / Amy Wetherby, Professor Directing Thesis; Juliann Woods, Committee Member; Howard Goldstein, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_175997 |
| Contributors | Swineford, Lauren Beth (authoraut), Wetherby, Amy (professor directing thesis), Woods, Juliann (committee member), Goldstein, Howard (committee member), School of Communication (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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