Movement Analysis in Infancy may be Useful for Autism Diagnosis

People suffering from autism might feel their surroundings differently than others from an early age, which might affect their process of development and learning. This finding was found in a new study published in the journal Communications Biology. Autism is mainly characterized by social communication difficulties along with restricted and repetitive behavior and interests. However, research shows that autistic people have different perceptions and reactions to various stimuli surrounding them.

Visual Perception in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Role in Social Impairment

Previous studies have shown that there is a connection between autism and difficulties in perceiving whole units in visual movement patterns. The ability to integrate movement signals into an overall figure is important to correctly perceive how objects and surfaces move concerning the viewer.

The new study examined activity in the brains of five-month-old infants sitting on their parent's laps while viewing different types of visual information. Researchers measured both how the brain reacted to simple visual changes in light (such as a line changing direction) and more complex patterns where the ability to see whole units were put to the test.

The assessment used EEG technology, which records weak electrical signals created naturally in the brain’s cerebral cortex when processing information. The signals were measured using electrodes placed around the head on a specially adapted cap.

Autistic Infants Have Different Perception of Movement

The infants who later on – at age three – exhibited many of the classic symptoms of autism had different brain activity when complex movement patterns were shown on the screen. This suggests that the brains of autistic people process visual motion differently from early infancy.

Simpler visual changes, on the other hand, produced a clear and similar response in all of the children's brains. Since autism has a strong hereditary component, the differences seen in visual perception in infancy are likely connected to genetic differences.

Correlating the results and previous studies of the relationship between brain activity and experience in adults with the diagnosis, it is plausible to believe that they experience it differently. It is also possible that this finding is related to the perception of complex social movements, such as the interpretation of facial expressions. This is something that needs to be investigated in future studies.

Autism cannot currently be diagnosed with good accuracy until around 2–3 years of age, but we hope that more knowledge about early development will enable us to make these assessments earlier in the future.

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The results of this study showed statistically significant differences between groups, but it is important to emphasize that the accuracy of the EEG measurement was too low to be able to predict the development of individual children. It is therefore too early to tell whether this method will have clinical value for early detection.

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Source-Eurekalert