Australian researchers have said their screening tool successfully diagnoses autism in toddlers aged 12-24 months. That's three years earlier than current methods.
Screening babies for autism can help people's life outcomes, say researchersImage: Wladimir Wetzel/Colourbox
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In a five-year study of more than 13,500 children, researchers at Australia's La Trobe University in Melbourne tested an early screening tool they had developed for autism.
They found that 83% of children aged between 12 and 24 months, who were "flagged by the tool," were later diagnosed with autism.
That is about four years earlier than current standard tests, the researchers said. And the earlier the diagnosis, they said, the better the life outcomes can be for people with autism.
"Children diagnosed early demonstrated better verbal and overall cognition at school age, were more likely to attend mainstream school and required less ongoing support than children diagnosed later," wrote lead researcher Josephine Barbaro in an email to DW.
Autism is not considered an illness or medical condition that can or needs to be cured — it's part of a person and stays with them their whole life. But people with autism can find it hard to communicate and interact with people or respond to sensory triggers like bright lights or loud noises without becoming overwhelmed.
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Diagnosis tool translated into eight languages
Current tests, such as M-CHAT (the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers), tend to diagnose autism between the ages of 4 and 6 years.
The new tool, known as SACS (Social Attention and Communication Surveillance), has two elements: SACS-Revised and SACS-Preschool.
When SACS-Revised (R) was used with the preschool version of the tool, 96% of children on the autism spectrum were identified by their 3.5 year health check.
Barbaro wrote that a meta-analysis of 13 studies found that M-CHAT had "a pooled positive predictive value (or accuracy) of 6%" when used in so-called 'low risk' community settings — lower than SACS-R's 83% accuracy.
The SACS tool has been translated into eight languages and used in 11 countries: Bangladesh, China, Italy, Japan, Nepal, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and the United Kingdom.
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Diagnosis is difficult
Barbaro, who is based La Trobe's Olga Tennison Autism Research Center, wants to see the tool used even more widely.
"Putting this extremely effective tool in the hands of a trained primary health professional, so that during their routine health checks they are also screening for autism, makes a huge difference to early diagnosis," said Barbaro.
Later in life, diagnosing autism can be "difficult," writes the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "because there is no medical test, like a blood test." Doctors look at a child's developmental history and their behavior to make a diagnosis.
June 18 is Autism Pride Day. People on the autism spectrum are affected in their social interactions and cognitive abilities to varying degrees. DW introduces you to some well-known examples.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Warner Bros/Entertainment Inc.
Albert Einstein
The physicist and maths genius was thought to have Asperger's Syndrome, a type of autism. People with Asperger's often focus obsessively on a complex topic and have trouble with social relationships. According to the BBC, Einstein was a loner as a child and repeated sentences obsessively. He was also very well versed in a highly complex topic - Einstein famously developed the theory of relativity.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The wunderkind's gifts to learn instruments incredibly quickly, compose music by the age of five and hear melodies while writing them have some experts believe Mozart was autistic. Supporters of this theory also point to Mozart's oversensitive hearing and his need to constantly move his hands and feet. Other researchers, however, say there isn't sufficient evidence for this theory.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images/Erich Lessing
Temple Grandin
She only started speaking at age four, but went on to become a sought-after expert for humane livestock handling: Temple Grandin uses her detailed visual memory and her own hypersensitivity to noise to better understand cattle and other animals. This has allowed her to develop thoughtful and humane animal-handling equipment. Grandin has also given many lectures about living with autism.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/H. Schmidt
Dan Aykroyd
The Canadian actor famous for his starring roles in movies like "The Blues Brothers" revealed in 2013 that he was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in the 1980s. Aykroyd credited his Asperger's with being responsible for "Ghostbusters," his biggest hit: "One of my symptoms included my obsession with ghosts and law enforcement," he told the Daily Mail.
Image: Getty Images for AFI/F. Harrison
Kim Peek
You may never have heard the name Kim Peek, but you're likely to know the movie he inspired: "Rain Man." The 1980s classic deals with the complicated relationship between Charlie Babbitt and his autistic brother Raymond, modeled after Peek and played by Dustin Hoffman. Peek, who died in 2009, was a so-called savant. He could recall the contents of more than 12,000 books.
Image: cc-by-Dmadeo
Andy Warhol
A soup can repeated over and over again on a canvas - one of Warhol's most famous paintings could be a sign that the artist was autistic. 'I would say, from the study I have seen, that Warhol almost certainly had Asperger's syndrome,' autism expert Judith Gould said. She pointed to his reluctance to speak too many words and his obsession with the uniformity of consumer goods as further clues.
Image: picture alliance/AP Images/R. Drew
Sheldon Cooper
Jim Parsons plays physicist Dr. Sheldon Cooper in "The Big Bang Theory," one of the most-watched sitcoms in the US. It's never stated that Sheldon is on the autism spectrum, but Parsons said he believed Sheldon has Asperger's, and many fans agree. Sheldon is a genius in his field, but doesn't understand sarcasm. He has a strict weekly dining plan and can only sit in one specific spot on his couch.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Warner Bros/Entertainment Inc.
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Edited by: Clare Roth
Correction, March 15, 2022: A previous version of this article stated that the researchers had used the M-CHAT diagnosis tool in combination with their own tool to compare results — as implied in a press release. In fact, they did not use M-CHAT at all, but compared their results from their own tool to existing data, including research done with M-CHAT. The current version has been corrected accordingly.
