Brain activity in infants predicts language outcomes in autism spectrum disorder

Posted on April 13, 2015

Photo: flickr

Why some toddlers with ASD get better and develop good language and others do not? - has been a recurring question for researchers.

Discovering the early neural bases for these different developmental trajectories now opens new avenues to finding causes and treatments specific to these two very different subtypes of autism.

The researchers studied 60 ASD and 43 non-ASD infants and toddlers using the natural sleep functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) method developed by the UCSD Autism Center investigators to record brain activity in the participants as they listened to excerpts from children's stories.

The researchers also found that, when combined with behavioral tests, these striking early neural differences may help predict later language outcome by early childhood.

Through their studies, they set towards a direction where parents with ASD have a better understanding of what lies ahead of them. Also, this paves the pathway to possible treatments.

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Category(s):Autism spectrum disorders

Source material from Eureka Alert