25101966
BACKGROUND	Existing eye-tracking literature has shown that both adults and children with autism spectrum disorders ( ASD ) show fewer and slower fixations on faces .
BACKGROUND	Despite this reduced saliency and processing of other faces , recognition of their own face is reported to be more `` typical '' in nature .
BACKGROUND	This study uses eye-tracking to explore the typicality of gaze patterns when children with ASD attend their own faces compared to other familiar and unfamiliar faces .
METHODS	Eye-tracking methodology was used to explore fixation duration and time taken to fixate on the Eye and Mouth regions of familiar , unfamiliar and Self Faces .
METHODS	Twenty-one children with ASD ( 9-16 years ) were compared to typically developing matched groups .
RESULTS	There were no significant differences between children with ASD and typically matched groups for fixation patterns to the Eye and Mouth areas of all face types ( familiar , unfamiliar and self ) .
RESULTS	Correlational analyses showed that attention to the Eye area of unfamiliar and Self Faces was related to socio-communicative ability in children with ASD .
CONCLUSIONS	Levels of socio-communicative ability in children with ASD were related to gaze patterns on unfamiliar and Self Faces , but not familiar faces .
CONCLUSIONS	This lack of relationship between ability and attention to familiar faces may indicate that children across the autism spectrum are able to fixate these faces in a similar way .
CONCLUSIONS	The implications for these findings are discussed .

