The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that all children be screened for autism twice before age 2. However, only between 5 and 7 percent of pediatricians perform a formal screening.
The average age of diagnosis for a child with autism is about 5 and a half, and experts say that's way too late. In the medical moment, we'll show you two new ways doctors are trying to catch autism earlier. Dalton Foreaker looks like any other three year old, but when he was an infant, his mom noticed the signs.
Casey Foreaker, Dalton Mother, explains the signs she saw, "I remember him not responding to his name when I would call him." Dalton was diagnosed with autism at just 16 months. Siblings have a greater risk, so Casey enrolled Dalton's little brother, Jayden, in a research study to diagnose autism earlier.
During the research, researchers monitored Jayden's response to recorded images. Mark Strauss, PhD, explains what some of the things they look for are, "There's some indication that in older children and adults with autism, they don't pay the same degree of attention to people as they do to the objects and things in the background."
http://www.wndu.com/healthnews/headlines/Doctors_
working_on_ways_to_better_diagonose_children_with_
autism_136612173.html
