They say the figures that one in 150 children is within the Autism Spectrum. It is considered to be, today, the most prevalent childhood disorder, and that is why researchers are still trying to find the causes, as well as to advance as much as possible the diagnosis to start treatments early.
About this, about the possibility of diagnosing it before, is the research that we show you today, which is an important advance since they have found a way to know whether or not a baby at risk will have an autism spectrum disorder.
Know before there are signs if you will be diagnosed
As we read on ABC, scientists from the University of Washington, in Seattle (USA), have found a way to predict whether a baby at risk of developing the disorder will certainly be diagnosed when he turns two or more.
Currently, the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is relatively complex in the first years of life, because there are different degrees of disorder (that is why it is called a spectrum), and because it is not easy to appreciate it until the child does not it reaches a point of maturation where it should move forward, but does not do it as expected.
For this reason the minimum age of diagnosis is usually between 18 months and two years, being the usual thing to happen between three and four years. This causes many children to lose precious time of interventions, strategies and supportive treatments with which they could evolve better, at a key time for development.
Studying high-risk siblings
When a child has ASD, their younger siblings are considered a high risk of being diagnosed with the same disorder, and thanks to this it has been possible to carry out this investigation. The authors of this study performed imaging tests on the brains of 148 children, divided into three groups.
In one of them there were 15 children at high risk of autism, who ended up being diagnosed at the age of two; in another there were 91 children at high risk of autism who did not receive such a diagnosis; and in the third group they analyzed 42 children with low risk, who were not diagnosed with ASD at two years.
They saw, in the brain scans performed on all children at 6, 12 and 24 months of age, that children with older siblings with ASD who ended up being diagnosed as well, experienced a hyperexpansion of the surface area of the brain between six and twelve months of life. In addition, they saw that this increase in brain surface occurred again after 12 months of life.
In addition, they analyzed the behavior of all minors and their intellectual abilities, and after studying all the variables they concluded that with everything studied they were able to predict if a 6 to 12 month high risk baby will be diagnosed at 2 years, with a reliability of 80%.
But 80% leaves enough room for error
So is. There is still a 20% chance of erring in the forecast. However, we talk about a breakthrough. To date, one of the methods to advance the diagnosis was the observation of the baby's eyes in the first months of life and onwards, but the number of false positives can be high, because many children may not have an ASD in reality. .
Annette Estes, co-author of the research, which has been published in the magazine Nature, explains the finding:
Usually, the earliest age at which we are able to diagnose autism is at two years, when the behavioral symptoms are apparent. However, and given the disparities in access to care, the average age of autism diagnosis in the United States is set at four years. But in our study we have been able to identify babies who will later be diagnosed with autism with the use of biomarkers at the ages of six and 12 months.When the disorder is diagnosed between 2 and 4 years of age, affected children are often behind their homonyms in terms of social skills, communication and language. And once these essential characteristics of development have been lost, equating with peers is a great effort for many children with autism. A task that, in addition, can be almost impossible in some cases.
Thus, we are facing a breakthrough that we hope will serve as a shuttle for new diagnostic methods to arrive soon and, who knows, even to know the cause of these changes in their brain structure in these babies.
Photos | iStock
In Babies and more | World Autism Awareness Day: prevent them from being sentenced, Some alternative treatments for autism can be dangerous, according to a study, These are the tests you can know if your child could have an autism spectrum disorder
