The average age of diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder is about 5 years, according to the CDC.24-Item questionnaire may report early signs of autism spectrum disordersIt takes only five minutes to complete and can be registered on the spotThe checklist does not zero in specifically on autism but "will tell you something is wrong."
(Canstar) - a quick and easy questionnaire to parents in a regular record in the Office of the pediatrician can help detect autism in children 1 year, a new study suggests.
24-Item questionnaire, which assesses the ability of the child to communicate with eye contact, sounds and gestures, can guide the infants who show early signs of disorders of the autism spectrum (ASD) in appropriate age treatment earliersay researchers.
Identify the language and delays in development of infants may also help scientists discover the processes underlying neurological autism, paving the way for more effective treatments, said Karen Pierce, Ph.d., the senior author of the study.
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"Most of the studies on autism is on adolescents and adults, said Pierce, an assistant professor of Neuroscience at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), in La Jolla."
"Some [are] on children, but very few people have the ability to study autism in babies, because we cannot diagnose it until 3 or 4 years.". "How in the world we'll discover the causes if we are going to study the brains that have had a lifetime of living with autism and [have] a multitude of compensatory mechanisms?"
The average age of the ASD diagnosis is approximately 5 years, while most of these children showed signs of development problems before the age of 3, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There is no biomarkers to indicate that a child has autism, so clinicians are based on clues behaviours, make diagnosis tricky. And even when a child is diagnosed with precision at the beginning, he or she often does not begin treatment until shortly after the diagnosis.
The questionnaire used in the study is a simple checklist that asks the parents to say if their baby displays certain types of communication "often," "sometimes," or "not yet." It takes only five minutes to complete and can be registered on the spot.
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The control list is not zero in specifically on autism, but "say you that something is wrong", said Pierce. That might be the early signs of autism or any other type of language or developmental delay.
In the study, which appears in the journal of Pediatrics, 137 paediatricians in the San Diego area presented more than 10,000 children who received their balance of one year.
Persons, 184 were determined to be below appropriate levels of development for their age and autism Centre of Excellence of UCSD for a thorough evaluation was seized.
Doctors interviewed every six months until they were 3 years old. So far, 32 children were permanently or provisionally diagnosed with an autism spectrum, with 56 disorders with a learning disability and nine with another disorder.
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Based on these results, researchers estimate that 20% of children reported by the control list in 12 months will go to develop autism and 55% will develop a learning or developmental disorder. Twenty - five percent will get a false positive result, they say, giving the questionnaire a precision rate of 75%.
Five children in this sample of the study that has been diagnosed at the start of ASD were determined later do step to have a disorder of autism. And, as hoped, the children who have been assigned to a diagnosis of autism or learning or developmental delay began treatment with an average age of 19 months.
In theory, prior treatment that may influence how the connections between neurons are deployed in the brain, greatly influence of emotional and social development of the child, Pierce says.
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But this is a question open, said Keith a. Young, Ph.d., Vice President for research in the Department of Psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Texas A & M Health Science Center College of Medicine, in the Temple.
"At this moment in time, there is no treatment validated at this young age," Young said. "There are various treatments that have been tested in older children, but they function in young children?" How do we need to adapt? Everything must come out and say, "OK, it should be testing." "Copyright Health Magazine 2010
