A study found that poor language skills and language delays can be predicted even before the child is diagnosed with autism.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability that affects one's social, communication and behavior. There is no medical test yet used to rule out if a child has autism, but symptoms are usually detected as early as 18 months or younger. However, some are not diagnosed until they are older, which delays the help that they need. Language delays are very common in ASD children, and doctors usually recommend speech therapy.
Researchers at at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine examined the brain scans of 103 children, ages 1 to 2, as they listened to a story. When they turned 3 or 4 years old, the team assessed their language comprehension and ability.
"We wanted to see if patterns of brain activity in response to language can explain and predict how well language skills would develop in a toddler with ASD before that toddler actually began talking," Eric Courchesne, professor of neurosciences and co-director of the Autism Center of Excellence at UC San Diego, said in a news release.
During the follow-up period, 60 of the children were diagnosed with autism; 24 of them got low scores on language while the rest scored above average. The researchers compared the brain scans of those with poor language skills with those with good language skills. They were able to categorize the children's language development based on the activity patterns of their brains.
"Our work represents one of the first attempts using fMRI to define a neurofunctional biomarker of a subtype in very young ASD toddlers," Karen Pierce, study co-author and associate professor of neurosciences and co-director of the Autism Center of Excellence, added. "Such subtypes help us understand the differences between persons with ASD. More importantly, they can help us determine how and why treatments are effective for some, but not all, on the autism spectrum."
The findings of the study can be useful in the development of early prevention measures and possible treatment for autism.
The study was published in the April 9 issue of Neuron.
