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Autonomic Arousal Response Habituation to Social Stimuli Among Children with Asd

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Abstract

Sustained autonomic arousal during eye contact could cause the impairments in eye contact behavior commonly seen in autism. The aim of the present study was to re-analyze the data from a study by Kaartinen et al. (J Autism Develop Disord 42(9):1917–1927, 2012) to investigate the habituation of autonomic arousal responses to repeated facial stimuli and the correlations between response habituation and social impairments among children with and without ASD. The results showed that among children with ASD, the smaller the habituation was, specifically in responses to a direct gaze, the more the child showed social impairments. The results imply that decreased autonomic arousal habituation to a direct gaze might play a role in the development of social impairments in autism.

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Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by the European Union (The GEBACO Project), the Medical Research Fund of Tampere University Hospital, The Child Psychiatric Research Foundation (Finland), The Emil Aaltonen Foundation, The Finnish Medical Foundation, the Competitive Research financing of the Expert Responsibility area of Tampere University Hospital (Grant No. 9R007 and 9PO13 to S-LH), and the Academy of Finland (MIND program Grant, Project No. #266187 to JKH). We are very grateful to all the parents and children who participated in this study and made it possible.

Author Contributions

Miia Kaartinen has made substantial contributions to conception and design, and acquisition of data, and analysis and interpretation of data, participated in drafting and revising the article and has given final approval of the version to be submitted. Kaija Puura has made substantial contributions to conception and design, and analysis and interpretation of data, participated in drafting and revising the article and has given final approval of the version to be submitted. Sari-Leena Himanen has made substantial contributions to acquisition of data, has participated in revising the article and has given final approval of the version to be submitted. Jaakko Nevalainen has made substantial contributions to analysis and interpretation of data, participated in drafting and revising the article and has given final approval of the version to be submitted. Jari Hietanen has made substantial contributions to conception and design, and acquisition of data, and analysis and interpretation of data, participated in drafting and revising the article and has given final approval of the version to be submitted.

Funding

This study was financially supported by the European Union (The GEBACO Project), the Medical Research Fund of Tampere University Hospital, The Child Psychiatric Research Foundation (Finland), the Competitive Research financing of the Expert Responsibility area of Tampere University Hospital (Grant No. 9R007 and 9PO13), The Emil Aaltonen Foundation, The Finnish Medical Foundation, and the Academy of Finland (MIND program Grant, Project No. 266187).

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Author Miia Kaartinen has received research grants from the European Union (The GEBACO Project), the Medical Research Fund of Tampere University Hospital, The Child Psychiatric Research Foundation (Finland), The Emil Aaltonen Foundation and The Finnish Medical Foundation, but declares that she has no other conflict of interest. Author Kaija Puura declares that she has no conflict of interest. Author Sari-Leena Himanen is a shareholder in the company Neurotest and has received research grant from Competitive Research financing of the Expert Responsibility area of Tampere University Hospital (Grant No. 9R007 and 9PO13), but declares that she has no other conflict of interest. Author Jaakko Nevalainen declares that he has no conflict of interest. Author Jari Hietanen has received research grant from the Academy of Finland (MIND program Grant, Project No. #266187), but declares that he has no other conflict of interest.

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Kaartinen, M., Puura, K., Himanen, SL. et al. Autonomic Arousal Response Habituation to Social Stimuli Among Children with Asd. J Autism Dev Disord 46, 3688–3699 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2908-0

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