Eye Tests Promise Hope for Early Autism Diagnosis

Researchers at the Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta have developed a device that can effectively and accurately diagnose autism in children as young as 16 months. The device, which was first granted approval by the Food and Drug Administration last year, assists clinicians at the center to assess a child’s autistic condition by electronically capturing the youngsters’ eye movement at the rate of 120 times per second.

The results of the test are usually available within 30 minutes after completion. Until now, tests for autism can often take hours and are done only by highly trained experts, who are often in short supply.

The technology makes visible signs that would otherwise be imperceptible to the human eye. It then compares that data to that of a child without autism.

A child being tested is shown a video of children doing everyday activities then measures just how interested the child is in following the activity on the screen. Since social learning usually develops in young children by watching others, a lack of interest, which can be tracked by eye movement, may mean the child is not able to learn that way.

Researchers at the University of California San Francisco have linked results from a simple eye test to severe forms of autism.

Clinicians can then correlate that data with standardized measurements for social disability, verbal ability and non-verbal learning. Prior to the development of this new device, it was generally not thought possible to accurately diagnose autism in children under three years of age. The effectiveness of the new device was confirmed in a large study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The co-author of the study in the medical journal, Dr. Ami Klin, is also the clinical director of the company that developed the diagnostic tool. He was born and grew up in Israel and is also the director of the Marcus Autism Center. He emphasizes that the new device will help parents seek early treatment for their children.

“This is the first step toward alleviating the endless waits experienced by parents who need a prompt diagnosis for their children to access early intervention and supports, which, in turn have the power to optimize lifetime outcomes.”

Currently, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average age for an initial diagnosis is 4 1/2. It’s said that one child in 36 has some form of autism.

The new diagnostic eye test for autism was developed at Marcus Autism Center. It was started in 1991 by Bernie Marcus and has been a major project of his foundation.

The Marcus Autism Center, which was founded in 1991 by Bernie Marcus and is supported by his foundation, is one of the nation’s largest treatment facilities for the condition. Each year, more than 4,500 children with autism and related disorders are treated there.

The technology was given a strong endorsement by Dr. John Constantino, who was involved in the research and is Chief of Behavioral and Mental Health at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, which is affiliated with the Marcus Center.

“EarliTec’s published data demonstrates vast improvements in earlier diagnosis and assessment for children within a realm of medicine in which the diagnosis is unnecessarily delayed or missed a great majority of the time.”

The EarliTec Diagnostics company, which was founded by Dr. Klin and others to market the device, obtained $21.5 million this summer in a new round of investment. The money will be used to facilitate new research and further development. In addition to the Marcus Center, studies are being conducted at three other research facilities.

The Marcus Center eye test is not the only new diagnostic tool for autism that uses vision. Scientists at the University of California San Francisco have devoted technology that analyzes how a child’s eye moves when they turn their head. The research was published earlier this year in the scientific journal, Neuron.

Hypersensitivity to the eye movement has been associated with severe autism. Of the many gene mutations that have been associated with autism, this specific mutation, called SCN2A gene, are among the most common. The researchers found that children with gene mutation predispose the child to sensitivity.

That condition creates an unusual form of the reflex that stabilizes the gaze while the head is moving. This can be measured with a simple eye tracking device. The scientists involved in the research found that they could diagnose autism in children with the gene mutation just by measuring how much the eyes moved in response to head rotation.

One of the scientists involved in the study, Dr. Kevin Bender, believes it might be a game changer for assessing some forms of autism where children are not very responsive.

“If this sort of assessment works in our hands with kids with profound, nonverbal autism, there really is hope it could be more widely adopted.”