Abnormal movements in infancy predict autism, study suggests

Analyzing infants' movements may provide an early diagnosis of autism, according to a study published in the Nov. 10 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Vol. 95, No. 23, p. 13982-13987).

And although some researchers are wary of the study's methodology, they admit the findings look promising.

The research team, led by University of Florida psychologist Philip Teitelbaum, PhD, analyzed home videotapes of 17 autistic children when they were infants-up to several years before any of them were diagnosed with autism. They looked at the videos frame by frame, using the Eshkol-Wachman Analysis System to evaluate the children's movements.

Compared with videos of infants without autism, all 17 autistic children showed clear signs of movement disturbances by age 4 months to 6 months and sometimes at birth-far earlier than current methods can diagnose the disorder. The infants with autism demonstrated asymmetries of the arms or legs while lying down or crawling; an abnormal method for rolling from back to stomach; and deviations from the normal gait of infants just learning to walk.

The study is interesting, but not methodologically strong, cautions psychologist and autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, PhD, of the University of Washington. Because the researchers didn't compare the children with autism to children with other developmental disabilities, 'it is impossible to know whether the movement disturbances are indeed specific to autism,' agrees psychologist Grace Baranek, PhD, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

'On the other hand, they're probably going to end up being right despite the weaknesses in methodology,' Dawson says, 'in the sense that movement is probably going to end up being important in terms of an early risk factor for autism.'

Indeed, Baranek has also found preliminary evidence supporting this idea.

-B. Azar



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