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New video-based therapy may be effective in preventing babies with early signs of autism from developing the disease in infancy, according to a new study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. Compared to infants who received only standard care, those who underwent this tailored preventive treatment were three times less likely to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by age three.
Stressing the importance of this finding, study author Andrew Whitehouse explained in a statement that “no trial of preventive intervention in infants, applied before diagnosis, has so far shown such an effect. on the results of the diagnosis – so far “.
This is because autism is usually not diagnosed until around the age of three, so developmental therapies are usually not given in infancy. The aim of this study was therefore to determine whether or not it is possible to prevent a diagnosis of autism by intervening early in cases where certain warning signs are apparent during the first year of life.
To do this, the researchers recruited 89 children aged nine to 14 months, all of whom showed atypical behavior related to a number of measures such as spontaneous eye contact, social gestures, imitation, and name response. . Half of these children received only “usual care,” while the other half received 10 home visits from a trained therapist over a five-month period. Importantly, all parent-child interactions during these sessions were filmed and analyzed by therapists.
By providing feedback on these recordings, therapists were able to help parents better understand their children’s unique set of characteristics and modify their own responses to create a supportive social environment. In this way, treatment was tailored to each child and focused on promoting the social and cognitive skills they needed most.
The study authors continued to monitor the development of all participants until the age of three, when 7 percent of those who received this treatment were diagnosed with ASD. In contrast, 21 percent of children who did not receive such care were diagnosed with the disease.
“Children who fell below the diagnostic threshold always had developmental difficulties, but by working with each child’s unique differences, rather than trying to counter them, therapy effectively supported their development throughout infancy. childhood, ”Whitehouse said.
The study authors describe the improvement in symptom severity brought on by treatment as “small but lasting,” and say longer-term studies that follow individuals into adulthood are needed to confirm the effectiveness of this approach.
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