early detection – Page 2 – ASF Weekly Science Podcasts

November 11, 2018

The average age of diagnosis depends on where, when, and how you ask

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While autism can be diagnosed reliably by 2 years of age, some people with autism don’t receive a formal diagnosis until much later. Why not? Racial and ethnic disparities as well as access to care issues are known factors. This week, data from Denmark suggested that the diagnostic criteria has played a large role in prevalence in people with autism since 1980. Many people who have autism may have been missed until they were older. It suggests that older prevalence estimates were missing a proportion of autistic adolescents and adults. Take away access and diagnostic barriers to a diagnosis, some kids followed from months of age in the baby siblings research consortium don’t receive a diagnosis at age 2, but do at age 5. They always had autism, but their symptoms were sub-threshold for a formal diagnosis until age 5.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30398592

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30392626

May 20, 2018

The sticky subject of cost effectiveness

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In a perfect world, money would not matter. But in this world, it does, and a dollar spent on one thing in the clinic by families, society and insurance companies means a dollar not spent somewhere else. Therefore, studies on cost effectiveness need to be conducted to determine how resources may be best used. In this podcast, Dr. Tracy Yuen of University of Toronto explains two different analyses which looked at 1) universal screening for ASD and 2) use of genomic sequencing to identify novel variants in people with ASD. Thank you to Dr. Yuen for explaining the process behind this and these intriguing findings. You’ll have to listen to find out what they are.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29651777

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29644584

January 28, 2018

Improving early detection of ASD by listening to parents

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It’s well known that both parent report and observational measure are crucial to an autism diagnosis. But what about prior to a diagnosis, in the critical period of 12-18 months when symptoms may be seen but a diagnosis cannot yet be made? A research collaboration across Canada has been studying better detection and translating it to early intervention, and postdoc Lori Sacrey from University of Alberta took the lead on a multi-site study investigating the utility and contribution of a parent report measure together with an observational tool in toddlers. She found that the parent report measure provided insights which improved the ability to predict a later autism diagnosis. It is because of the collaboration across Canada that this research is possible. Also, the autism journal Autism took an unusual and bold step in ensuring that adults with autism are represented in their perspective. Hear why on this week’s podcast or read the link below:

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1362361317748556

Here is the Sacrey publication: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29356441