How does social attention develop in autistic children?

As they grow, children increasingly focus their attention on social elements in their environment, such as faces or social interactions. However, children with autism are often more interested in non-social stimuli, such as textures or geometric shapes. By tracking where children look while viewing a cartoon, researchers have revealed that attention in autistic children does not follow the same developmental trajectory as that of typically developing children. Instead, they each gradually develop their own unique attentional preferences.