Baby Babble Used as Early Detection for Autism | HealthMad

Baby Babble Used as Early Detection for Autism | HealthMad

Medical experts all agree that early diagnosis is crucial, if not essential, to maximize therapeutic improvement in children with autism. The theory being that the sooner intensive therapy is started, the more improvement is possible.

So, you can imagine the benefits that being able to distinguish early babble of an autistic child vs. a non-effected child would be. Currently, autism is usually diagnosed after a long subjective observation session by a medical specialist watching for and keeping count of the “characteristics of autism” presented.

Imagine if therapy could begin before the signs and symptoms of autism are even present! That is exactly what a new research study is focusing on. Researchers are studying those nonsense syllables that babies make as they babble in an effort to find an early screening tool. Science has proven that autistic children typically show early problems in speech, but that fact is not reliable because of the variety in how toddlers distort their babbling….in comes a computer program.

The study is being published today in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.” I think that readers should be aware that a couple of the authors were paid consultants for the company that developed the recorder and computer program. However, the researchers disclosed this information, and claim that they stopped taking the fees by the time the research was written.

Read the research here-http://healthmad.com/mental-health/baby-babble-used-as-early-detection-for-autism/