Early Intervention for Children at High-Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder is diagnosed in children at around three years old and infants with siblings diagnosed with the disorder are at a higher risk of being diagnosed themselves.  ASD occurs in about 1 in every 59 births in the United States and about one percent of people in the world’s population have been diagnosed with the disorder. There is no cure for autism, but can we reduce the severity of a child’s symptoms? 

In the presentation by Maggie Guy, she discussed her research on ASD high-risk infants at twelve months old and their brain activity when presented with familiar and novel stimuli compared to low-risk infants. Using EEG and brain scans, Guy determined that high-risk infants display unique neural response patterns when exposed to familiar as well as novel stimuli. Noting these differences in neural responses could be the starting point for early intervention.

Teaching parents appropriate communication skills during the early stages of their child’s development has shown decreases in the severity of their child’s ASD symptoms. Heidi Ledford discusses the benefits of early intervention in the article “Autism Study Finds Early Intervention Has Lasting Effects.” Ledford states, “the idea behind early intervention therapies for autism is that they stand a greater chance of having an impact because symptoms are not as severe and the brain is at an earlier stage of development.” Even though the children may have not been diagnosed with ASD, if they are a part of a high-risk group, early intervention can be a preventative measure to lessen possible future autism symptoms. 

High-risk infants may benefit the most from early intervention. Guy’s results showed that twelve-month-olds in the high-risk group for autism have unique neural responses when presented with familiar and novel stimuli. People diagnosed with ASD often experience abnormal visual attention, specifically atypical facial processing, which can be seen in this high-risk group. Early intervention focuses on engagement between parents and children to better social communication and lessen the severity of the child’s symptoms. High-risk infants may benefit from this level of engagement and lessen any ASD symptoms they display if they later become diagnosed with the disorder. Ledford discusses a study in which children with ASD still saw the benefits of their early intervention six years after the sessions stopped. The key to successful early intervention is the age of the child because they are early in their development and the severity of their symptoms is still low.

The range of symptoms and severity vary throughout autism spectrum disorder. A person may experience communication impairment, lack of eye contact, repetitive behaviors, and attention deficits but early intervention can lessen the severity of a child’s symptoms. Targeting high-risk children before their diagnosis may be an extra step that can benefit that child’s future.

Citations

Guy, Maggie (2018). Neural correlates of face processing in etiologically-distinct 12-month-old 

infants at high risk of autism spectrum disorder. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 29. 61-71.

Ledford, Heidi. Autism Study Finds Early Intervention Has Lasting Effects. Scientific American, 26 Oct. 2016, www.scientificamerican.com/article/autism-study-finds-early-intervention-has-lasting-effects/.