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Psychological Markers in the Detection of Autism in Infancy in a Large Population

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Simon Baron-Cohen ,
Antony Cox ,
Gillian Baird ,
John Swettenham ,
Natasha Nightingale ,
Kate Morgan ,
Auriol Drew  and
Tony Charman
Simon Baron-Cohen*
Affiliation:
Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Cambridge
Antony Cox
Affiliation:
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Gillian Baird
Affiliation:
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
John Swettenham
Affiliation:
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Bloomfield Clinic, and Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Cambridge
Natasha Nightingale
Affiliation:
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Bloomfield Clinic and Newcomen Centre, Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital Medical School, St Thomas' Street, London SE1 9RT
Kate Morgan
Affiliation:
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Bloomfield Clinic and Newcomen Centre, Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital Medical School, St Thomas' Street, London SE1 9RT
Auriol Drew
Affiliation:
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Bloomfield Clinic and Newcomen Centre, Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital Medical School, St Thomas' Street, London SE1 9RT
Tony Charman
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, (Philips House), University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
*
Dr Baron-Cohen, University of Cambridge, Department of Experimental Psychology, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB
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Abstract

Background

Investigation to see if there are key psychological risk indicators for autism in a random population study of children at 18 months of age; and to assess how well these discriminate children who receive a diagnosis of autism from other forms of developmental delay.

Method

Sixteen thousand children in the southeast of England were screened for autism by their health visitor or GP, during their routine 18-month-old developmental check-up, using the CHAT (Checklist for Autism in Toddlers). From a previous high-risk study we predicted that children at 18 months of age who failed three items (‘protodeclarative pointing‘, ‘gaze-monitoring‘, and ‘pretend play’) would be at risk for receiving a diagnosis of autism. From other evidence, we further predicted that those 18-month-olds who failed one or two of the key items (either pretend play, or protodeclarative pointing and pretend play) would be at risk for developmental delay without autism.

Results

Twelve children out of the total population of 16 000 consistently failed the three key items. Of these, 10 (83.3%) received a diagnosis of autism. Thus, the false positive rate was 16.6% (2 out of 12 cases), and even these 2 cases were not normal. When the 10 children with autism were reassessed at 3.5 years of age, their diagnosis remained the same. Thus the false positive rate among the cases diagnosed with autism was zero. In contrast, of 22 children who consistently failed either protodeclarative pointing and/or pretend play, none received a diagnosis of autism, but 15 (68.2%) received a diagnosis of language delay.

Conclusions

Consistent failure of the three key items from the CHAT at 18 months of age carries an 83.3% risk of autism; and this pattern of risk indicator is specific to autism when compared to other forms of developmental delay.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 168 , Issue 2 , February 1996 , pp. 158 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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Footnotes

1.

In this latter subgroup, items Biii and Biv were omitted, since these would have been simply repeating questions A5 and A7.

2.

The Autism diagnosis actually contains 2 subgroups: Autism (without any developmental delay), and Autism + Developmental Delay.

3.

It should be noted however that with the judges who used the ADI–R (a parent-report measure only), criteria were slightly modified: To receive a diagnosis of autism, a child had to score above the traditional threshold on the first 2 axes (Reciprocal Social Interaction; and Communication), and score above a new threshold of 2 or more on the third axis (Repetitive Behaviour). This modification was made because many children scored above the traditional threshold on the first 2 axes, but just missed doing so on the third.

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