| |
Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are difficult to diagnose before 12 to 18 months of age because many early signs, such as not responding to one’s name, aren’t reliable in a child so young. Charles Nelson, PhD, research director of Children’s Hospital Boston’s Division of Developmental Medicine, aims to move the diagnostic window back into the first year of life, allowing interventions to begin as early as possible.
Dr. Nelson’s team in the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience is using electrophysiologic studies of the brain to find predictive measure that are unencumbered by behavior. "Our goal is to detect reliable risk markers for ASDs, and ultimately to develop new methods for early screening and diagnosis," he says.
The study, still enrolling, is comparing infants at high risk for ASDs (having at least one older sibling with an ASD or a language impairment) to infants with no family history of the disorders. In addition to behavioral testing, the infants are shown images of their mother and a stranger while electrodes record their brain activity and eye movements are tracked; in another test, they listen to familiar and unfamiliar language sounds while brain activity is recorded.
Preliminary findings suggest that at 6 months of age, high-risk infants are less able to differentiate between native and non-native speech sounds than control infants, and at 6 and 12 months, respond more slowly to their mothers’ faces. Overall, their brains generate less of the kind of brain activity that has been associated with integrating information. The team will follow the infants to 36 months old and see how well their measures predict the diagnosis of ASDs.
|
|
| |
