寶寶不看自己的媽媽或表明他們日後可能自閉

My new granddaughter was seen by a doctor for her six-week check recently. As she lay on a table the doctor clicked his fingers and moved them slowly from her left to her right. She followed his fingers with her eyes quite precisely. He turned to me and said with some surprise, "She's tracking". "Oh, yes" I said, "she's been tracking for a week or so".

最近，醫生看了我剛出生6個星期的外孫女。她躺在桌上，醫生點着他的手指從左到右在她面前晃。她雙眼緊盯醫生的手。醫生轉向我，驚訝地說道，"她居然跟着我看了"。"哦，是的"我說道，"她已經這樣一個星期左右了"。

"That's good", he said and I thought he was referring to my granddaughter's ability to focus her eyes on something crossing her field of vision.

"不錯，"醫生說道，我還以爲他指的是外孫女能在視線範圍內集中看某事的能力。

Well, he was, but he was also seeking assurance about something else. New research has shown that eye tracking, or lack of it, in babies as young as six months, is a clue to whether they will develop autism.

額，的確如此，但他也在確保其它事情。新研究已表明：6個月大的寶寶視線追蹤，或缺乏視線追蹤是他們日後是否會患上自閉症的一個跡象。

If we want to diagnose and treat autism early, we need to find new signs that may indicate a baby's risk of developing the condition.

如果我們想早點診斷、治療自閉症，我們就必須找到或能表明嬰兒發展該疾病風險的新跡象。

Typically, infants prefer to look at and scan faces from the first days of life. Not only do they prefer faces, but new studies suggest that they even prefer to look at a parent talking rather than non-human objects.

通常，嬰兒喜歡在出生的前幾天看人臉。他們不僅喜歡臉，新研究還表明他們甚至喜歡看着父母說話，而不喜歡看非人物品。

Eye movements, known as tracking, are a guide to learning, so developing newborns selectively stimulate the part of their brain relating to faces and social images from the moment of birth.

眼珠轉動，也就是追蹤，是學習的指南，所以新生兒剛生下來，就會選擇性的刺激有關人臉和社交圖像的大腦部分。

At a US autism centre, Dr Karen Pierce and her team are using eye tracking technology to discover if eye tracking patterns can be used as an early warning sign.

在美國一家自閉症中心，卡倫·皮爾斯醫生和她的團隊正是使用了視線追蹤技術，以發現視線追蹤模式是否可以被視作自閉症的早期預警信號。

They believe that an infant's choice of what to look at from the first days of life can signify if there are potential problems.

他們認爲，嬰兒生下來的頭幾天選擇看什麼或能表明他們是否有潛在的問題。

For instance, in one eye tracking study infants as young as 14 months, who eventually went on to be diagnosed with autism, preferred to look at films of geometric shapes rather than films of children dancing and doing yoga.

例如，在一項視線追蹤研究中，嬰兒只有14個月大小，他們最喜歡看幾何形狀的電影而不是兒童跳舞和練瑜伽的電影，他們最終都被診斷出了自閉症。

The reverse was true for 51 infants and toddlers who all, with one ?exception, preferred to look at people and faces.

相反，51位嬰兒和剛會走路的小孩子，他們都喜歡看人、看臉（除了一個例外），最終都沒有患自閉症。

In another recent eye tracking study, six month olds who later received an autism diagnosis looked less at the features of a face when the face was speaking.

在另一項最近的視線追蹤研究中，6個月大的嬰兒在之後接受了一項自閉症診斷，診斷過程中，當人臉說話時，嬰兒看人臉特徵的次數變少。