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EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age
21–30 of 56 posts
Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age
#22There's some really early eye movement based detection too. Good to see this. As others point out it isn't a binary but a hugely variant spectrum, but there are some commonalities that at the very least suggest that a child receive further screening or prepare the parent to watch for other symptoms. Regardless of the type and spectrum position, a kid with an early diagnosis/warning seems much more likely to have a good outcome than one that gets one while in pre-school or kindergarten.
Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age
#23This would be amazing if it works. The reason I say "if" and hedge my words is because the conventional wisdom is that autism is not a single disorder with a single underlying condition. It is a cluster of symptoms of varying intensity and it is (likely) caused by a host of underlying conditions. Two children diagnosed with the disorder can have no overlapping symptoms. If that is right, then the first step is to bre…
> Two children diagnosed with the disorder can have no overlapping symptoms. Is there a precedent for this with other disorders? Seems to me that if there are no overlapping symptoms, it should be a separate disorder. Even if it's just arbitrary naming like "Type X" as in diabetes.
I think there are precedents.
It happens because there is so much overlap in most patients, and symptoms tend to occur in clusters.
General delays in motor skills and language skills are quite prevalent in many conditions. If you google videos of kids with autism, you will see varied abilities.
I am hesitant to go into more detail because this is an area that causes a great deal of anxiety for parents and discussions are often sensitive. One surefire way to annoy a parent and get into an argument is to claim their kid does or does not have a condition that differs from their own opinion. (And I can see why it would bother them).
Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age
#24This would be amazing if it works. The reason I say "if" and hedge my words is because the conventional wisdom is that autism is not a single disorder with a single underlying condition. It is a cluster of symptoms of varying intensity and it is (likely) caused by a host of underlying conditions. Two children diagnosed with the disorder can have no overlapping symptoms. If that is right, then the first step is to bre…
> Two children diagnosed with the disorder can have no overlapping symptoms. Is there a precedent for this with other disorders? Seems to me that if there are no overlapping symptoms, it should be a separate disorder. Even if it's just arbitrary naming like "Type X" as in diabetes.
> Seems to me that if there are no overlapping symptoms,
The full name is "Autistic Spectrum Disorder", so the name hints that there's a range of stuff happening.
To be autistic someone has to have problems with social communication, problems making or maintaining friendships, and fixed and repetitive interests.
Some people also have other stuff on top. These things are common with autism, but are not needed for the dx.
Alexithymia (the ability to recognise emotion in yourself and others) is one example. It's far more common in autistic people, but you don't need it to be autistic. Between 50% and 55% of autistic people have alexythimia. Sensory sensitivities are another. There are a range of these things that are more common in autistic people, but aren't needed for the dx.
And there's a lot of co-morbidity too. People with autism are more likely to have depression or anxiety or OCD. These aren't part of autism, but it's complicated to untangle what's going on. Is someone social isolated because they're depressed, or autistic, or is it a bit of both?
When you start looking at these other things it makes sense that autism might be an umbrella diagnosis.
Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age
#25This would be amazing if it works. The reason I say "if" and hedge my words is because the conventional wisdom is that autism is not a single disorder with a single underlying condition. It is a cluster of symptoms of varying intensity and it is (likely) caused by a host of underlying conditions. Two children diagnosed with the disorder can have no overlapping symptoms. If that is right, then the first step is to bre…
> Two children diagnosed with the disorder can have no overlapping symptoms. Is there a precedent for this with other disorders? Seems to me that if there are no overlapping symptoms, it should be a separate disorder. Even if it's just arbitrary naming like "Type X" as in diabetes.
> Is there a precedent for this with other disorders? Seems to me that if there are no overlapping symptoms, it should be a separate disorder.
Yes, this is a pretty normal way of doing diagnoses.
Specifically, many disorders are diagnosed according to the template "the disorder is present if the patient presents any X out of this list of Y symptoms". As long as X is less than half of Y, it's possible for two patients to "have" the disorder without sharing any symptoms.
"Have" is in scare quotes because, obviously, this state of affairs is an artifact of the diagnostic criterion. However, it's also possible for e.g. two people to host infections of HIV without sharing any symptoms -- one may have AIDS while the other is asymptomatic.
Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age
#26This would be amazing if it works. The reason I say "if" and hedge my words is because the conventional wisdom is that autism is not a single disorder with a single underlying condition. It is a cluster of symptoms of varying intensity and it is (likely) caused by a host of underlying conditions. Two children diagnosed with the disorder can have no overlapping symptoms. If that is right, then the first step is to bre…
> Two children diagnosed with the disorder can have no overlapping symptoms. Is there a precedent for this with other disorders? Seems to me that if there are no overlapping symptoms, it should be a separate disorder. Even if it's just arbitrary naming like "Type X" as in diabetes.
Imagine a power set of 2^n possible symptoms, that tend to occur together. Would you create 2^n diagnoses?
Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Two children diagnosed with the disorder can have no overlapping symptoms. Is there a precedent for this with other disorders? Seems to me that if there are no overlapping symptoms, it should be a separate disorder. Even if it's just arbitrary naming like "Type X" as in diabetes.
> Seems to me that if there are no overlapping symptoms, The full name is "Autistic Spectrum Disorder", so the name hints that there's a range of stuff happening. To be autistic someone has to have problems with social communication, problems making or maintaining friendships, and fixed and repetitive interests. Some people also have other stuff on top. These things are common with autism, but are not needed for the…
And it overlaps with the diagnostic "Pervasive Developmental Disorder" in case you thought ASD wasn't a big enough tent.
Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age
#28This would be amazing if it works. The reason I say "if" and hedge my words is because the conventional wisdom is that autism is not a single disorder with a single underlying condition. It is a cluster of symptoms of varying intensity and it is (likely) caused by a host of underlying conditions. Two children diagnosed with the disorder can have no overlapping symptoms. If that is right, then the first step is to bre…
I suspect the reason autism has such a constellation of symptoms isnot because the cause is complex, but because the environment (human brain and body) is complex. Imagine there was "cardboard box spectrum disorder", caused by keeping a child in a 4x4-ft box for their first 5 years. They'd develop a host of comorbid symptoms, in varying intensities, based on how the child developed coping mechanisms and workarounds to it's confinement, even though the actual cause is quite simple.
For autism, the "cardboard box" is something to due with the pattern of connections in the developing brain, and pattern has wide ranging impacts on many brain functions, which then influence physical functions , which cause feedback loops back to and inside the brain.
Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age
#29Does early diagnosis give better treatment options?
Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age
#30This would be amazing if it works. The reason I say "if" and hedge my words is because the conventional wisdom is that autism is not a single disorder with a single underlying condition. It is a cluster of symptoms of varying intensity and it is (likely) caused by a host of underlying conditions. Two children diagnosed with the disorder can have no overlapping symptoms. If that is right, then the first step is to bre…
Even if diagnosis works perfectly, a brain scan tells you almost nothing about how to respond. The one benefit is to focus early intervention efforts on parents who will likely need ASD parenting skills in their child's next few years.