Computer Program that can help Diagnose Autism Earlier In a Child’s Life

By Kelly Woodcox

Rochester : IN : USA | Jul 21, 2010

6 0

A study released on July 19th, scientists have reported that they have a new computer program that helps differentiate the speech of normal children to children with autism. It’s not 100% but it can correctly recognize more than 85 percent of autistic children versus a typical child.

This discovery could eventually help doctors diagnose autism much earlier in a child’s life. Autistic children typically go through extensive and intense therapy and the sooner they can catch the autism the more likely they are to improve much more quickly. So early detection is crucial for autism.

Really all they have to do is have this computer program prove itself to the necessary people.

Autism is being diagnosed in a increasing number of children. One in every 110 kids in the U.S. Alone has autism or a connected condition, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Autism is a devastating disorder for some parents. A child that carries all or almost all of these traits have trouble with communicating and especially have a hard time relating and interacting with others. Many autistic babies, avoid making eye contact. Avoiding eye contact doesn’t mean they have autism, however. As they get a little older they also may flail their hands up and down in an excessive manner, and many will not play with toys, but rather line them up in usually perfect order. Many of these children are gifted much in other areas, such as counting and have highly talented traits. They might be genius prone in some areas, but completely lacking in other skills. The most common downfall is communication and interaction with other children and people.

This new tool in measuring autism at an early age does give us some hope, but we will not know for certain until further research is done on how it will carry out.

Scientists have known for decades that sentence structure at an early age, even babbling part words and part syllables that are harder to understand can help when diagnosing autism. Autistic children at same age levels tend to carry on far more syllables rather than using words. They comprehensively used tape recorders in thought to be autistic children aside with non-autistic children to find this out. They would put the tape recorders in their pockets for sometimes 12 hours at a time to test this.

However with the computer program it can more easily distinguish in a quicker period of time on whether the speech patterns carry autistic attributes.

To read original post click HERE.

Related Sources:

http://www.aolhealth.com/2010/07/20/speech-screening-may-help-diagnose-autism-in-children/

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2010/07/20/2010-07-20_babys_babbling_may_help_doctors_diagnose_autism_early_on.html