Social COgnition Screening
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: eye-tracking, cognitive assessments.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Eye-tracking, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Social Cognition, Diagnosis. Basic parameters: 4 years — 10 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- France
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
Unsure about the terms? Read our patient guide →
Official title
Evaluation of Social Cognition: A New Screening Approach for Autism
Overview
Social cognition refers to the mental processes involved in social interactions, including social perception, motivation, communication, emotion recognition, and theory of mind. Face perception plays a key role in children's social development, but children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) tend to look less at social stimuli, especially faces, than typically developing (TD) peers. Eye-tracking studies highlight these visual exploration differences, linked to difficulties in joint attention, emotion recognition, and theory of mind, as well as in executive and memory functions. Standard diagnostic tests often require active participation and sufficient language, which makes assessment challenging for children with ASD and additional cognitive or language impairments. This research project investigates how visual activity supports social cognition depending on cognitive and language levels, hypothesizing that eye-tracking can provide useful indicators for ASD screening and diagnosis.
Interventions
- Other eye-tracking
eye-tracking - Other cognitive assessments
cognitive assessments
Primary outcome measures
- differences in visual exploration patterns between both groups [Time frame: 2 years]
- Classification performance of machine learning algorithms in distinguishing ASD from TD [Time frame: 2 years]
Secondary outcome measures (3)
- Correlations between eye-tracking measures and cognitive scores [Time frame: 2 years]
- Developmental trajectory analysis in TD children [Time frame: 2 years]
- Identification of cognitive subgroups within ASD group [Time frame: 2 years]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- ASD Group:
- Boys or girls diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (based on clinical tools and observations)
- Aged between 4 and 10 years old
- Affiliation with a social security scheme
- Informed consent of those with parental authority
- DT Group:
- Boys or girls
- Aged between 4 and 10
- Attending school in the Hauts-de-France region
- Affiliation with a social security scheme
- Consent of those with parental authority
Exclusion criteria
- For ASD: Uncorrected visual or auditory impairments.
- For DT: Intellectual disability, neurological or genetic disorders, autistic traits reported by teachers. The discrepancy between actual age and abilities calculated on the basis of standardised test scores
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: Yes
Study design
- Allocation
- Non-randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Open label
- Primary purpose
- Other
Study locations
France · 1 center
- Amiens hospital — Amiens
Identifiers
NCT: NCT07377227 · PI2025_843_0181