New Questionnaire May Help Predict Autism As Early As One Year Old

This new questionnaire that’s being tested takes around 5 minutes, and seems to have a 75% accuracy in detecting Autism early or a learning or developmental disorder!

Such great news for catching this stuff early so treatments can begin immediately with verification.

Here’s how it works:

The 24-item questionnaire, which assesses a child’s ability to communicate with eye contact, sounds, and gestures, may steer infants who show early signs of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) into appropriate treatment at earlier ages, the researchers say.

“Some [are] on children, but very few people have the ability to study autism in babies, because we can’t diagnose it until 3 or 4 years. How in the world are we going to discover the causes if we’re studying brains that have had a lifetime of living with autism, and [have] a host of compensatory mechanisms?”

Unfortunately, Autism can only really be diagnosed around the age of three, with most of the diagnosis coming in around age five. The questionnaire is multiple choice, and doesn’t necessarily point to Autism directly, but rather that something is wrong.

Here’s how they tested it:

In the study, which appears in the Journal of Pediatrics, 137 pediatricians in the San Diego area screened more than. 10,000 children who were undergoing their one-year checkup. Of those, 184 were determined to be below the appropriate levels of development for their age, and were referred to UCSD’s Autism Center of Excellence for further evaluation.

Doctors examined them every six months until they were 3 years old. So far, 32 children have been definitely or provisionally diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, 56 with a learning disorder, and nine with another disorder.

So, based on those findings here are the percentages: 20% flagged will go on to develop autism, 55% a learning or developmental disorder, and 25% a false-positive. 75% then is pretty accurate, but there is also that 25% false positive there that would allow parents not too worry to harshly quite yet, while doctors are able to keep their eye on the child a little extra just in case.

[Image via AP Images.]