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Chibi_Neko
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Joined: Oct 24, 2007
Age: 26
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Location: Newfoundland, Canada
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 Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 3:14 pm Post subject: New test spots autism signs in 9-month-old infants |
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New test spots autism signs in 9-month-old infants
| Quote: | Canadian researchers have developed a new test for diagnosing autism as early as nine months of age.
Mel Rutherford of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., has led a team that has been using eye-tracker technology to measures babies' eye directions while they look at faces, eyes and bouncing balls on a computer screen.
Rutherford, an associate psychology professor, says the test is "not at all invasive." The eye-tracker camera sits on a table in front of the child and collects data from eye movement for 10 minutes.
She believes that this is a way to measure how engaged babies are with their environment, which is a marker for normal development.
"It gives us the hope that we will some day be able to say for certain that an individual baby is developing with autism or not developing with autism as early as nine months," Rutherford told CTV Newsnet on phone from London, U.K.
Researchers have found that children who are developing normally pay attention to people's faces and engage in eye contact. However, children with autism don't focus on the eyes, or don't look directly in the face at all.
"I can do this in 10 minutes, and it is objective, meaning that the only measure is eye direction; it's not influenced by a clinician's report or by intuition. Nobody's been able to distinguish between these groups at so early an age," Rutherford said in a statement earlier.
"Because we know that autism is developing early in the first year of life we can now exclude some hypotheses that have to do with later developing cognitive skills," she told CTV Newsnet.
Despite the fact that doctors can diagnose a child with autism around two years of age, most children are diagnosed around age four.
"There is an urgent need for a quick, reliable and objective screening tool to aid in diagnosing autism much earlier than is presently possible," Rutherford said.
Diagnosing children earlier will lead them into treatment at a very young age, which most doctors agree is the key to minimizing the disease's symptoms.
"We are hoping that within the next couple years we will have a stronger tool to really identify those babies with a higher risk of developing autism," said Rutherford.
Researchers at McMaster University will continue to recruit babies who have a sibling with autism to take part in the study.
"The more babies we have in the study the better our prediction will be when we look at an individual baby," Rutherford said.
Children with autism have difficulty with social interaction, communication and they may engage in repetitive behaviours.
Treatments like intensive behavioural training can help kids with autism acquire communication skills and help them interact more closely with their families.
Rutherford is presenting her research Friday at the 7th Annual International Meeting for Autism Research in London, U.K.
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Your thoughts?
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Last edited by Chibi_Neko on Thu May 15, 2008 4:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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tailfins1959
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Joined: Apr 07, 2008
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 3:36 pm Post subject: |
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Great, now maybe they can refine the test to spot autism signs before birth and arrange a prompt government funded abortion. Maybe this is the "cure" so many have been searching for!
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EvilKimEvil
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Joined: Sep 27, 2007
Posts: 3038
Location: CA
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Tools for objective measurement are always a good thing in medicine, IMO. But the article did not mention how reliable the test is. Do they even have long-term data on it? What is the rate of false positives? And false negatives? And could other conditions, such as vision abnormalities, create a false positive? And would parents be urged to begin autism treatment based on the results of this test alone? I would have to know the answers to these questions before forming an opinion on this procedure. |
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krex
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Age: 44
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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Was this research funded by Autism Speaks,vitamen and mineral companies or ABA therapist ? I am off to scream now.
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Chibi_Neko
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Location: Newfoundland, Canada
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 5:00 pm Post subject: |
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| krex wrote: | | Was this research funded by Autism Speaks,vitamen and mineral companies or ABA therapist ? I am off to scream now. |
I have no idea, but it would not suprise me. Babies are not longer young humans, they are robots... they 'must' grow and behave identical to others, other wise there is something 'wrong'.
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Danielismyname
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 9:20 pm Post subject: |
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Therapy helps those with [Kanner's] Autism, and it's imperative that it's done early. It can turn someone from said Autism to a level of Asperger's in appearance.
There's some with Autism who improve naturally, there's some who only improve with therapy, and some don't really improve no matter what. Therapy helps the former two. |
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krex
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Danielismyname wrote: | Therapy helps those with [Kanner's] Autism, and it's imperative that it's done early. It can turn someone from said Autism to a level of Asperger's in appearance.
There's some with Autism who improve naturally, there's some who only improve with therapy, and some don't really improve no matter what. Therapy helps the former two. |
Here is what I'm curious about....What kind of therapy and how do you know that it was the therapy that helped or just time. There is no way to know for sure what someone would be like if you had done nothing...there are just to many facotrs to account for. Perhaps I would have been higher functioning if I had gotten such "treatment" but perhaps I would have been if my parents had just been more loving and incouraged my interests? So, how do they know that the therapy was what made the improvement. I have seen research on depression that had similiarly confusing results. Group A got no therapy, Group B got meds and Group C got nothing. All three groups showed the same % of imrovement over a specified time period. I just wonder if this is similiar in autism treatments ? Also, do they know what the long term effects of such treatments are for the individuals. How do they measure that? I mean, I was misrable most of my life and wanted to die many times....I would have loved some kind of treatment to not feel like that but I also have some traits that I like...Is it possible to change one thing without sacrifcing the other when so many autie traits are interconnected...ability of focus=good, inability to stop focusing on an interest to take a bath,get a job=not so good.
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demoluca
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Joined: Nov 17, 2007
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 10:31 pm Post subject: |
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Oh good god.
9 months old is a little ridiculous.
The kid can't even read yet.>-<
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Danielismyname
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 4:39 am Post subject: |
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krex,
From the eMedicine article on Autism:
| Quote: | | Individual intensive interventions, including behavioral, educational, and psychological components, are the most effective treatments of autistic disorder. Beginning the treatment early in infancy results in the most favorable outcome. Diagnosis in the first months of life is crucial. |
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darkstone100
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Location: ! what's this box doing here?
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 9:17 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Diagnosing children earlier will lead them into treatment at a very young age, which most doctors agree is the key to minimizing the disease's symptoms. |
I think its good to diagnose it early so that they can grow up getting help in school and at home so that they can function better, but i don't like the above quote as how they refer to autism as a disease. |
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tailfins1959
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 10:18 am Post subject: |
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| Chibi_Neko wrote: | | krex wrote: | | Was this research funded by Autism Speaks,vitamen and mineral companies or ABA therapist ? I am off to scream now. |
I have no idea, but it would not suprise me. Babies are not longer young humans, they are robots... they 'must' grow and behave identical to others, other wise there is something 'wrong'. |
That sounds like a big strain on the Socialized Medicine budget! Aborting would be more fiscally responsible.
I have a wild idea! Lets just keep our private health care system here in the US and institute tort reform so professionals rise to the occasion to be helpful like they could do if being sued wasn't the first thing on their minds.
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Yeah with all of these men lining up to get neutered
It's hip now to be feminized
I don't highlight my hair
I've still got a pair
Yeah honey, I'm still a guy |
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krex
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Joined: Jun 21, 2006
Age: 44
Posts: 4973
Location: Village of the Damned
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Danielismyname wrote: | krex,
From the eMedicine article on Autism:
| Quote: | | Individual intensive interventions, including behavioral, educational, and psychological components, are the most effective treatments of autistic disorder. Beginning the treatment early in infancy results in the most favorable outcome. Diagnosis in the first months of life is crucial. |
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Thanks for providing the link but it only says....X...it doesn't explain to me how they came to this conclussion or how they know that that particular child whould have developed without such interventions. I may not be explaining my question very well. What I am getting at is that there are many adults who never recieved the DX of autism as a child. They may have been DXed with learning disabilitites or social issues but were given no interventions....yet they did "develop" coping skills and learned how to function at a higher degree then they did as a child. Without researching these individuals...how do they know which of these autistic kids would be able to do the same with out 8 hours of ABA therapy? I think many of us older adults would have fewer problems now if we had had some kinds of "treatment"...social skills, NVL and not being told we are insane for our AS traits. I just don't trst the "science" behind ABA therapy because I don't beliee researchers have looked at how nontreated autistics have learned to function.
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Just because one plane is flying out of formation, doesnt mean the formation is on course....R.D.Lang
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Sora
Illogical, Irrational
Joined: Sep 16, 2006
Age: 20
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Location: Europe
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 1:38 pm Post subject: |
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I think it's perfect that they try to get children diagnosed as early as possible.
It saves a lot of problems and some sorrow and may benefit a fair share of children with early intervention when they need it the most.
I do wonder though. Maybe the US has some weird lunatics in power and what I tell is only true for my country?
In Germany autism therapy has the goal to implore and use the potential of an autistic person to lead a successful and happy life. They don't try to make the person non-autistic, because they say that's impossible.
I think it's better to have therapy and maybe progress faster than without it, than have no therapy and never even try to make faster progress by doing nothing.
I do not think that doing nothing is the acceptable alternative, if there is a any chance that doing something will at least not cause regress but instead lead to better improvement. I don't think there's any risk in that therapy autistic people receive in Germany.
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EvilKimEvil
zoo-music girl
Joined: Sep 27, 2007
Posts: 3038
Location: CA
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 11:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Sora wrote: | | In Germany autism therapy has the goal to implore and use the potential of an autistic person to lead a successful and happy life. They don't try to make the person non-autistic, because they say that's impossible. |
Wow. That sounds refreshingly realistic. |
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Averick
Anarchic Aberrational Anathema
Joined: Mar 06, 2007
Age: 28
Posts: 1924
Location: Sorry, I'm no Jedi.
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 11:41 pm Post subject: |
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I'm not happy with this test.
What's testing a 9 month old going to prove? |
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