The latest autism research news stories with ASF Chief Science Officer Alycia Halladay
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This week’s podcast explores new evidence that exercise produces longer term improvements in coordination and motor skills. Parents can play a big role in how these skills are developed over time. Physical exercise also has different effects on the brain in typically developing people than those with a diagnosis.
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Autism diagnosis at 3 years of age isn’t something that happens suddenly. It evolves, there are deficits seen early on and markers that are evident prior to 3 years. Some of them are cascading events – with problems in one area like motor function, other behaviors like reaching, grasping, and learning about the environment and interactions with other people are stunted. Sometimes, these cascading moments lead to a loss of language. Early intervention can turn these early deficits around so that communication, learning and daily functioning are continually supported and instead of one trajectory, another can be reached. This podcast highlights studies that demonstrate that with data, and with theory. But it is never boiled down to one thing, despite early studies that screen time use is linked with an ASD diagnosis.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35098539/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35099540/
https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdep.12439
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Scientists study motor skills in early development not just because it is one of the first features to emerge, but because it is predictive of later social communication development, and as it turns out, later expressive language development. A new study combining data from 2 countries shows that early motor deficits predict language abilities all the way up to age 19, so focusing on early motor skills is imperative for early intervention. Also this week – a review on why those tiny details in genetics of ASD can be so helpful for people across the spectrum and families.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31429087
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31491383
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Everyone knows the way to study infants with autism is through thorough testing of younger siblings of those with a diagnosis, who have a 15x greater chance of have a diagnosis themselves. Through these methods, new ways of identifying and predicting autism later on have been developed. On this week’s podcast: two very influential and recent papers on the study of motor issues in 6 month olds who go on to be diagnosed with autism, and those who don’t have an autism diagnosis but have signs and symptoms of ASD. Are motor issues related to an ASD diagnosis or ASD symptoms? And what about core symptoms of autism like language? Can early motor behaviors be used to predict who goes on to receive an autism diagnosis or has language problems? What should parents do? How should this influence an early intervention plan? Learn more this week!