Strange body movements may reveal whether infants have a mild form of autism called Asperger鈥檚 Syndrome, say researchers in the US. Earlier diagnosis may one day lead to a better prognosis for children with Asperger鈥檚 syndrome.
As many as one in 200 children in the US suffer from either autism or Asperger鈥檚 Syndrome, which both appear to have genetic roots. The conditions are marked by difficulty relating to other people and repetitive behaviour.
But autism is usually diagnosed much earlier than Asperger鈥檚 鈥� by the age of three 鈥� because it hinders language development. Asperger鈥檚 Syndrome, however, has more subtle effects on language and usually does not become apparent until the age of seven.
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So researchers at the University of Florida in Gainesville, US, set out to see if body movements could betray the disorder in infants. They asked parents of children who were later diagnosed with Asperger鈥檚 for videos of the children when they were less than a year old. The researchers then scrutinised the videos of 16 children frame by frame.
Certain physical characteristics stood out, such as falling to one side while walking. Eight of the infants had a 鈥淢oebius mouth鈥�, a sign of neurological damage that appears as a tented upper lip and flat lower lip.
And the infants had trouble sitting and standing upright. They fell without extending their arms to protect them or keeping their heads perpendicular to the floor, as most infants do. The results backed earlier observations made by the team on autism in 1998.
Tilting test
鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 have the protective reflexes of any normal child 鈥� they fall like a log,鈥� says Osnat Teitelbaum, first author of the study and an expert in movement notation.
She cautions that individual symptoms, such as the Moebius mouth, cannot be used to diagnose Asperger鈥檚 Syndrome. But if a child shows a cluster of symptoms, she says, they may have the syndrome.
She suggests parents do the 鈥渢ilting test鈥�, in which they tilt a child from an upright position by 45 degrees right or left. By eight months of age, a normal child will try to keep his or her head perpendicular to the floor, while a child with autism or Asperger鈥檚 tends to keep it aligned with the body.
Catherine Lord, director of the University of Michigan鈥檚 Autism and Communication Disorders Center, says the work is 鈥渧ery interesting鈥� but points out weaknesses in the study method. These include the lack of a control group and the fact that no standard definition of Asperger鈥檚 syndrome was used for all the children.
鈥淏ut that doesn鈥檛 take away from the interesting technique,鈥� Lord told New 杏吧原创. 鈥淭he unusual ways that people with autism hold their bodies is something we see frequently in the clinic.鈥�
If the research is borne out, Lord says, an early diagnosis may help children by exposing them to more social interactions, which could help reduce their symptoms. 鈥淔amilies might deliberately engage their child more,鈥� she says.
Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI 10.1073/pnas.0403919101)