newjerseynewsroom.com

BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Latest reports say that about 1 in 100 children in the United States has some form of autism. The American Academy of Pediatrics has already urged children between 18 and 24 months to be screened for autism during regular doctor visits. In 2009, studies found that most children are not diagnosed until they reach 5 years old.

The National Institutes of Health have funded a study which may be able to detect signs of autism in a child as young as 1-year old.

The Huffington Post reports this study uses a 24-question checklist terms that parents can answer in about five minutes.

Neuroscientist Karen Pierce of the University of California, San Diego, recruited 137 pediatricians to use the questionnaire during 1-year checkups and refer children who failed for further testing. Those children were retested every six months until they reached age 3.

The National Institute of Mental Health reports that of 10,479 infants that were tested, 32 were found to have autism spectrum disorder. The test provided a diagnosis that is consistent with ongoing rates of autism about 75 percent of the time.

According to medpagetoday.com, 56 were found with language delays, nine had developmental delays, and 36 with "other" deficits. The study reported that 89% of the children diagnosed with language delay received behavioral therapy by around 17 months.

The study reports that about 65 of every 10,000 children have autism, according to Business Week. Pierce said that meant statistics showed that their test caught nearly half of the children who would have been diagnosed later.

The test will never be able to catch all cases of autism in 1-year-olds because some cases develop later in childhood or are marked by regression, where the child loses developmental skills after about 18 months.

And it was unable to pinpoint Asperger's syndrome, which affects about 10 percent of children with an autism spectrum disorder.