Autism Symptoms Start Before Birth: How Ealy Diagnosis Helps The Child's Development?

• comments
• 
• 

A new method that could diagnose infants with autism prior to seeing symptoms is undergoing an experimental research. Experts suggest that this is the first-of-its-kind and it uses magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) to evaluate the brains of infants who are at high risk of autism.

Firstly, those who are suggested to be at high risk of developing the mental condition are those who have older siblings suffering from autism. The method used was able to accurately predict about 80 percent of infants who would later experience symptoms of autism after 3 years.

The scanned results showed that early brain development biomarkers are beneficial in identifying which among the infants are at high risk of developing autism. We see an increased rate of growth in the outer surface of the brain, the folds, the sort of waviness of the surface that's followed by an overgrowth of the brain in the second year," Dr. Joseph Piven, the study author said to CBS News.

The brain's overgrowth corresponded with the typical autism behavior that begins to appear when a child reaches its second year. By the help of this study, brain changes can be identified as early as possible and therapies that could intervene while the brain is still developing can be applied.

"It's a time we're talking about during the first year of life where the brain is most malleable," Piven said. According to Scientific American, one in every 68 children has the possibility to have autism; those who have older siblings with autism have the higher risk of about 20 every 100 births.

Sadly, most children don't have the chance to be diagnosed on or before their second year of birth. Experts suggest that early diagnosis is the key for the disorder to be recognized and this will help both families and the doctors to apply intervention strategies like communication and behavioral therapies. This also helps the child to achieve better results.