An application, designed by autism specialists, could make it easy to diagnose autism before the age of 3. A crucial issue for early care, too rare today.
Nature Medicine published, on October 2, 2023, information which will modify the conditions for screening for autism in children under 3 years old. An application, designed by autism experts, which could help detect these disorders very early. Géraldine Zamansky, journalist for the Health Magazine on France 5, explains to us how this new tool is crucial in this area.
franceinfo: Is this a real hope for progress in the early support of affected babies?
Geraldine Zamansky: Yes, really, this application was able to detect autism in 49 babies among 475 children, aged one and a half to 3 years old. Among them, 9 had been “missed” by traditional evaluations. This new, much more effective tool was designed by the team of Professor Géraldine Dawson, psychiatrist at Duke University. They created a set of tests, which could be carried out in just 10 minutes, with a tablet or smartphone, equipped with a camera.
A camera to record babies’ reactions?
Exactly. Reactions deciphered through movements of the head, eyes, lips or eyebrows. With, in all, 49 points, followed to the millimeter by this camera, associated with software created to “translate” the results. This is what Sam Perochon, the Frenchman on the team, a part-time doctoral student in the United States, and here, at the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay, explained to me.
The videos and the game offered to babies on the screen make it possible to test the behaviors characteristic of autism. It can result, from the first months, in less attention to others, the absence of response to one’s first name, expressions and particular emotional relationships. Or even slower movements.
But could a baby who slept poorly be falsely screened, because he is just “in slow motion”?
I reassure you, the decryption carried out avoids this type of “trap”. Of course, less screen time is a key part of this screening. But not only. Sam Perochon specifies that the system is, for example, capable of distinguishing between facial expressions “neurotypical”, and those, unpredictable, of babies suffering from autism. The same goes for certain ways of reacting to being called your first name. All with unattainable precision “with the naked eye”.
As a result, the application even identifies the areas of greatest difficulty, where assistance must be reinforced. Because we now know that autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder. The earlier specific support begins, the more effective it is on the growing brain. A bit like rehabilitation after a stroke. So let’s hope that this application confirms this first result on a larger scale.
Could French teams participate in this development?
Absolutely, since the Franco-American link is even already made by Sam Perochon!