Typically autism isn’t diagnosed until the age of two but Rutherford’s small study is able to use eye tracking technology to pinpoint autism in about 10 minutes.
“What’s important about this study is now we can distinguish between a group of siblings with autism from a group with no autism — at nine months and at 12 months,” said Rutherford, in a release. “I can do this in 10 minutes, and it is objective, meaning that the only measure is eye direction; it’s not influenced by a clinician’s report or intuition. Nobody’s been able to distinguish between these groups at so early an age.”
The researchers tested siblings of those with autism who are at higher risk of developing ASD. These findings are then compared against a control group. Follow-up testing at two years old is done to compare with the earlier findings.
More research and development will be done to further this development.
Source: cbc.ca