Social Attention in Electronic Picture Books with Social Scenes for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Insights from Eye-Tracking Studies

Electronic picture book free viewing can promote language comprehension ability and social cognitive abilities in children with autism by providing structured visual information. Understanding autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children's visual attention patterns during electronic picture book free viewing can inform targeted educational research. The attentional preference of children with ASD toward electronic picture books with social scenes remains under-explored. This study aimed to understand the social attention of children with ASD during free viewing of electronic picture books with social scenes. Eye-tracking technology was used to record the visual behavior of 24 children with ASD viewing electronic picture books independently, and 25 typically developing (TD) children were selected as the control group. The results showed that children with ASD allocated less fixation time to social information in electronic picture books than TD children, with a clear difference in the fixation time spent on facial regions. Children with ASD neither displayed the same attention to happy facial expressions in electronic picture books as TD children nor did they show significant differences in attention to different emotions. These findings contribute to our understanding of visual attention patterns in children with ASD during electronic picture book free viewing and provide empirical evidence for future research on optimizing visual viewing guidance for children with ASD.