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EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age

sciencedaily.com

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Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age

#51

Post by DINKDINK »

fundamental wrote: post #48
DINKDINK wrote: post #43

Relevant stats: >The algorithms predicted a clinical diagnosis of ASD with high specificity, sensitivity and positive predictive value, exceeding 95 percent at some ages. More about the metrics you care about[1] Edit: Many people in this thread are talking about bayesian stats that it appears they don't full appreciate or understand. They're saying that 95% statistical accuracy is commendable. 95% sensitivity and 95%…

Thanks for writing this summary. Plenty of people get the wrong idea when it comes to test accuracy for topics like health diagnosis. In the case of this particular topic it does seem like the outlined test could be another tool that doctors could utilize. If for instance a child has shown a change in developmental milestones then that observation comes with it's own (somewhat doctor specific) sensitivity and specifi…

>Nothing's going to be perfect, but the outlook is a bit more positive than presented in your example.

Ideally what would happen is that the doctor would use their judgement to narrow down the candidates who the test is applied to who have strong priors of Autism. That would substantively increase PPV. You'd need a ~50% prevalence before you get to 95% PPV

Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age

#53

Post by projectramo »

gowld wrote: post #28
projectramo wrote: post #16

This 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 t…

Good point. However, this example could go either way.

Suppose everything you said is true, but in addition to all that, there is a set of symptoms caused by -- making this up -- endocrine disruptors in our drinking water. When pregnant women drink too much, they get some subset of symptoms from a set that overlaps 80% with the cardboard box symptoms.

Now we have two different causes for different symptoms. In addition, you can get the strange case where:

patient A, symptoms X, condition G

patient B, symptoms X, condition H

patient C, symptoms Y, condition G

patient D, symptoms Y, condition H

Although most of the time, condition G will have similar symptoms and condition H will have similar symptoms.

That's why it is so useful to have a marker.

Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age

#54

Post by loriverkutya »

tw1010 wrote: post #52

I don't understand why there's such a massive focus on autism research, both on HN and in the news in general. It doesn't seem like a pareto optimal use of attention resources.

Because with early development, people on the spectrum could function better in the neurotypical environment, which means more people with ASD can work and need less support later.

Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age

#55

Post by callesgg »

tw1010 wrote: post #52

I don't understand why there's such a massive focus on autism research, both on HN and in the news in general. It doesn't seem like a pareto optimal use of attention resources.

On HN, cause ASD correlates highly with intrest in technology.

On the news on average, don't have a good theory but mabbye just cause it is interesting forefront research.

Re: EEG Accurately Predicts Autism as Early as 3 Months of Age

#56

Post by kosma »

DINKDINK wrote: post #43

Relevant stats: >The algorithms predicted a clinical diagnosis of ASD with high specificity, sensitivity and positive predictive value, exceeding 95 percent at some ages. More about the metrics you care about[1] Edit: Many people in this thread are talking about bayesian stats that it appears they don't full appreciate or understand. They're saying that 95% statistical accuracy is commendable. 95% sensitivity and 95%…

Thank you for this comment; it has been an eye-opener for me. I always eyeballed those statistic and assumed 0.95 is good; now I've realized that it's not specificity, but (100%-specificity) that matters.
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