For the first time, toddlers with autism have demonstrated significant improvement after intensive intervention by parents rather than clinicians, according to a new Florida State University study published online in the journal Pediatrics.
"We've come up with a treatment model that can teach parents to support their child's learning during everyday activities, and we've documented that the children improved their developmental level, social communication skills and autism symptoms," said Amy Wetherby, director of the Autism Institute at Florida State University's College of Medicine and lead author of the Pediatrics study.
Social communication includes eye gaze, facial expressions, gestures, sounds, sharing of emotion, listening, learning to understand words, discovering how to use objects—things that children with autism have difficulty learning.
"The findings are important because this treatment is viable for any community," Wetherby said. "We have early intervention that's federally and state funded. Now we've tested a model that any early intervention system should be able to offer to all families of toddlers with autism. It's affordable, and it's efficient in terms of clinicians' time."
Most children are not diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) until age 4—and even later in lower-income, rural and minority families. By contrast, the American Academy of Pediatrics wants every child to be screened at 18 and 24 months of age.
[For more of this story, written by Ron Hartung, go to http://medicalxpress.com/news/...icians-autistic.html]
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