Posted on 11/07/2013 8:23:53 AM PST by Seizethecarp
Autism can be identified in babies as young as two months, early research suggests.
US researchers analysed how infants looked at faces from birth to the age of three.
They found children later diagnosed with autism had shown diminished eye contact - a hallmark of autism - in the first few months of life.
The findings, reported in Nature, raised hope for early interventions to tackle autism, said a UK expert.
In the study, researchers led by Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta used eye-tracking technology to measure the way babies looked at and responded to social clues.
They found infants later diagnosed with autism had shown a steady decline in attention to the eyes of other people from the age of two months onwards, when watching videos of natural human interactions.
"In infants with autism, eye contact is declining already in the first six months of life," said Dr Jones.
But he added this could be seen only with sophisticated technology and would not be visible to parents.
"It's not something that parents would be able to see by themselves at all. If parents have concerns they should talk to their paediatrician."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
One of my granddaughters has a bad nut allergy. Peanuts being the worse, shes in high school now, but as a small child her mother had to check everything for peanut oil in it. Her older brother looked out for nuts on labels, his baby sister couldn’t read yet.
How sweet of her big brother :-)
I've done volunteer work with handicapped children for almost 35 years, and so often the parents of the clearly autistic kids I meet are scientists or researchers or statisticians and jobs like that. Its a strange correlation.
I am 73 and my brother is 5 years younger, we have both had allergies since we were small children, no one was counting.
Being on the autism spectrum myself, I can tell you that a lot of what we see today is a result of “feeding the beast”. When I was very young, I had all the classic traits. But I wasn’t able to feed them because my entertainment consisted of reading and playing outdoors.
Today’s aspies get a steady diet of neuron stimulation. Every aspie I know is using a tablet or a phone or a game system or a computer to keep them quiet as opposed the belt my father used. So they never get a chance to “grow out of autism”. They actually grow into the reclusive, addictive world of technology/gaming.
I work in a cubicle farm full of people just like me. There’s a vast difference between the older guys and the younger guys.
And just to clarify, I am at the 8th Prestige level of Call of Duty World at War so I am not a good role model.
And congratulations on your CoD rank. I've never played that. My chosen arena has been Halo exclusively for years. I've spent many hours in that world numbing my mind too.
One of the things we talk about is “transition”. If I’m head-down coding and someone interrupts me, it can be ugly. The same holds true for games. Now I see the kids sitting in church banging on their mom’s smartphone, playing a game. A problem waiting to happen.
Standing in center field for years was a better treatment. If you want to help a child on the spectrum, put them outside doing something. Hiking, camping, running, sports, etc. Social interaction + exercise.
I wasn’t really talking about intelligent kids, but the children of intelligent people (physicsts, mathematicians, etc.) having autism.
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That sounds like you are saying the children you work with are not intelligent, even though their parents are.
As a former teacher, I would say that children of intelligent parents are more often intelligent than not. Successful physicists, mathematicians, scientists etc. are often more intelligent than the average person.
There are several books that explain the misdiagnosis of children, if you are really interested in an answer to your question. Feel free to explore the subject or not.
Having offered the info, I am done with the discussion.
Meant to ping you to my post 40 in response to post 28.
Here's a weird one for you. My husband has a friend/colleague. He's an engineer. Super quirky, weird guy. I have always believed he is some level of autistic.
I just recently found out, he has a brother who is autistic.
Changes in set plans generally cause issues too. I've known kids who obsess about the set way of doing things, and any unforeseen changes, such as the order in which we're going to do something, can cause a complete meltdown.
The kids I'm talking about have limited or no verbal ability, they are mostly non-communicative, most can't read, many self-stimulate, some are echolalic.
I am not talking about misdiagosed children.
That’s what I thought.
My wife and I have that conversation when I am vacuuming the floor.
Her: Why don’t you vacuum the windows while you are in here?
Me: Because I am vacuuming the FLOORS.
My baby has a peanut allergy that I discovered on his first birthday. Who knows how long he had had it.
You can develop allergies at any time in your life. My daughter developed a severe allergy to cats when she was about 14 or 15. We had cats when she was little and never had any problems. Now if she is near them for even a few minutes, her throat closes up and she has trouble breathing, her eyes water and swell. Allergies can be deadly.
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