Autism can be identified in babies as young as two months by measuring when and how long a baby looks at other people's eyes, according to reports.
The study, published online in the journal Nature, found that infants later diagnosed with autism began spending less time looking at people's eyes between two and six months of age and paid less and less attention to eyes as they grew older.
n a new study, researchers from the Marcus Autism Center, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University School of Medicine, used eye-tracking technology found that 3-year-olds diagnosed with autism looked less at people's eyes when they were babies than children who did not develop autism.
The study followed 59 infants who had a high risk of autism because they had siblings with the disease, and 51 infants at low risk.
"By following these babies from birth, and intensively within the first six months, we were able to collect large amounts of data long before overt symptoms [of autism] are typically seen," said Warren Jones, Ph.D., the lead author on the study.
The researchers enlisted the help of clinicians to diagnose or confirm the diagnoses of any of the toddlers with autism. The researchers found that infants who were diagnosed with autism later on were already slowly avoiding eye contact with other people from two-months-old and onward.
"We found a steady decline in attention to other people's eyes, from 2 until 24 months, in infants later diagnosed with autism," said co-investigator Ami Klin, Ph.D., director of Marcus Autism Center. "First, these results reveal that there are measurable and identifiable differences present already before 6 months. And second, we observed declining eye fixation over time, rather than an outright absence. Both these factors have the potential to dramatically shift the possibilities for future strategies of early intervention."
