How early can professionals detect autism?

California researchers assessed about 150 infants at 6 timepoints between the ages of 9 and 36 months. Each time, they gave the infants objects and observed how they inspected them, and they observed the infants’ social behaviors. They administered psychological tests for cognitive functioning and for autism. At 36 months, the researchers classified the infants into the autism, high-risk non-autism, and low-risk non-autism groups. 

Results? At 9 months old, the infants eventually diagnosed with autism showed unusual, repetitive visual inspection behaviors of the objects they looked at, including looking at them from different angles, squinting or blinking repeatedly, or for a prolonged time. These behaviors at 9 months predicted social autism behaviors even at 12 months like lack of eye contact, of sharing emotional responses, and of responding appropriately in social situations. 

Identifying these unusual visual inspection behaviors as early as 9 months old is essential, so these children must get early skill training vital to their development, especially in language and social interaction with others. Seek an expert’s evaluation if a child has these or any unusual behaviors.

Written by Robin N. Fatovic

Reference: Miller, M., Sun, S., Iosif, A.-M., Young, G. S., Belding, A., Tubbs, A., & Ozonoff, S. (2021). Repetitive behavior with objects in infants developing autism predicts diagnosis and later social behavior as early as 9 months. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 130(6), 665–675. https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000692