LONDON: Scientists have taken a big step towards a test that could allow babies to be screened for autism at birth. Such a test is likely to be controversial. Many experts question whether much can be done to help autistic children at so young an age, and critics believe that a positive diagnosis might simply cause stress for new parents.
Autism is rarely picked up before children reach the age of three, because behavioural tests for the condition are unreliable in younger children. The value of an earlier test relies largely on how good treatments for such young children prove to be.
David Amaral, a researcher at the University of California and co-author of the new study, believes that an early test would have definite benefits. “Not being able to detect autism until a child is close to three years old eliminates a valuable window of treatment opportunity during the first few years of life when the brain is undergoing tremendous development,” he said.
“Finding a sensitive and accurate biological marker for autism that can be revealed by a simple blood test would have enormous implications for diagnosing, treating and understanding more about the underlying causes of autism.”
Other researchers are more cautious about testing children for autism so early. Hilary Cass, a neurodisability physician who works with autistic children at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, said there was little evidence that strategies designed to help two-year-olds with autism work well, with even less known about the benefits for younger children.
Doris-Ann Williams of the British In-Vitro Diagnostics Association said without a reliable treatment the case for screening at birth was weak.
In the study, blood samples taken from autistic children revealed their immune systems were working differently to normal, with levels of specific “killer cells” boosted by 40 per cent. The levels of other immune cells, more than 100 different proteins and smaller molecules, were also highly unusual, the researchers found in the study, announced on May 5 at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Boston.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.
