Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) frequently co-occur and some individuals with both conditions have language impairments. Early attention to social and non-social stimuli at the rhythm of human syllabic speech (4-8Hz) may provide behavioural evidence of infant’s perceptual tuning to the underlying mechanisms of language. It may also indicate whether infants modulate their looking behaviour according to the social relevance of stimuli and differences in stimulation arising from the rate of task presentation. However, to date few studies have examined these processes very early in development, where some of these individuals will later present with ASD and ADHD.

I will present preliminary findings from an eye-tracking task to investigate attention to underlying features of language, social and non-social stimuli in infants at typical-likelihood and elevated-likelihood of ASD and/or ADHD from the BASIS STAARS cohort (www.staars.org).