Diagnosing Autism Early

Diagnosing children at a young age for autism can be hard because you might not be able to tell until anywhere between two to four years old.  On top of that, most families are not able to see a specialist for almost a year.  This can make getting a diagnosis take even longer while they wait to get an appointment with a specialist.  The University of California identified a group of blood metabolites that is able to help detect children with the autism spectrum disorder (ASD).  The testing that is currently being used to detect autism is through an interview with the children instead of doing a brain test.
In the research that Maggie Guy conducted, she focuses on how infants react to different objects on a computer screen. While the infants were looking at the screen, they had an EEG cap on the infants head so they could record the different brain waves throughout the picture process. She did this with infant siblings of the children that are diagnosed with autism.  She also did it with infants that have fragile X syndrome.  By doing this, she was able to see how their brain waves change throughout looking at pictures of their caregiver, a random stranger, and their favorite toy.
The average age in which children get diagnosed with autism is three. Autism may be found early through, what researchers believe to be true, the metabolome. Metabolome is what remains after larger molecules have broken done. Biological markers involved in the process of determine if a child has autism. The biological markers are not able to detect all autism, but it can detect sizable subsets of those who have autism. Those who have autism have a unique concentration of amino acids in their blood compared to an individual who is showing typical development.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180906082016.htm