Abstract
Early Signs of Autism
Signs of autism may show up as early as first month of a child’s life. Researchers followed 110 children from birth to age 3, at which point a diagnosis of autism was ascertained. Fifty-nine babies were considered “high risk” for developing an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) because they had siblings with autism; 51 were considered “low risk” because they did not have first-, second-, or third-degree relatives with ASD. Data were collected at 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 24 months of age. Each time, the children watched videos showing actresses playing the role of a caregiver. From birth, babies will look more at the eye part of faces, but at about 4 to 6 weeks, attention to eyes decreases, and then, in typical babies, this picks up again at 2 months. Researchers found that at 6 months, there was a decline in the amount of looking at other people’s eyes in children who later are diagnosed with autism. The research suggests that a baby’s initial eye contact ability may be almost a reflex-like behavior, but then, there may be a second phase of development that depends on different brain and gene systems, which lead to social interaction. The researchers concluded that the observation of this decline in eye fixation—rather than outright absence—offers a promising opportunity for early intervention.—Jones, W., & Klin, A. (2013). Attention to eyes is present but in decline in 2-6-month-old infants later diagnosed with autism. Nature, 504, 427–431.
Cognitive Delays and Behavior Problems
Researchers analyzed data on 8,000 children whose development and behavior was assessed when they were between 9 months and 2 years old and again at ages 4 and 5. Children scoring in the top ten percent of total scores on behavioral difficulties were considered to have behavioral problems. Then the researchers looked at which children had behavioral problems and how many of them had cognitive delays. They first found that the cognitive delays identified in children when they were young went away on their own for 80 percent of the children. Among children who had cognitive delays that went away, 19 percent had behavior problems at 24 months old. However, among those who had developed new cognitive delays at 24 months, 22 percent had behavior problems. Among those who had cognitive delays identified early on that had not gone away, more than a third (36 percent) had behavioral problems. Meanwhile, only 13 percent of typically developing children–those who never had cognitive delays–had behavior problems.
As time passed, children with greater cognitive delays tended to have behavior problems that worsened, especially if their cognitive delays did not improve. By the time the children were 5 years old, those with cognitive delays had moderately higher scores for behavior problems than typically developing children. Behavior problems among children with cognitive delays increased as children moved toward school age. –Cheng, E. R., Palta, M., Kotelchuck, M., Poehlmann, J., & Witt, W. P. (2014). Cognitive delay and behavior problems prior to school. Pediatrics, 134, e749-e757.