age of diagnosis – ASF Weekly Science Podcasts

September 10, 2023September 10, 2023

Now you know the reason for decades of eye tracking research

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Can biomarkers that measure things like visual social attention be a good proxy for an in person behavioral diagnosis? Why would this be important? This week’s podcast explores two new studies the the Journal of the American Medical Association that show a simple device called EarliPoint can be used to shorten the wait times to receive a diagnostic evaluation. Currently autism can be diagnosed at 18 months but most families do not get into an appointment until 4-5 years of age. That can change. Families were able to easily complete it, it predicted things like not just a diagnosis but behavioral features and cognitive ability. It’s been deployed in 6 speciality centers, been approved by the FDA, and hopefully coming to a clinic near you soon.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10481232/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37668621/

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

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

November 19, 2017November 19, 2017

Parents are people too

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Sometimes parents get a bad rap for not having autism themselves, or not being in touch with the challenges of autistic adults. This week’s ASF Podcast highlights two new studies on the role parents play in science, research and understanding racial disparities. A group in the United Kingdom released the results of a survey across Europe which examined parent perceptions on early autism research (think infants and toddlers) and how researchers could better help families at this stage. Another study from researchers in Georgia and Connecticut revealed how important parents (and clinicians) can be in reducing the disparity in diagnosis between black and white children in the US. Finally, a call to unite over a common challenge: employment. If you have not done so already, please make your voice heard as a parent, autistic adult, employer or service provider on a survey gauging the needs of the entire autism community around employment. http://www.lernerlab.com/employmentsurvey.html

Here are the references used in this podcast:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4230972/

https://www.autismspeaks.org/sites/default/files/docs/as_science_planning_survey_final_pdf_0.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29126359

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29100475