New Therapy Shows Promise In Treating Infants Demonstrating Signs Of Autism

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A specialized intervention program designed to treat infants showing signs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) could help significantly reduce symptoms by the age of three, according to new research currently appearing online in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

In the study, authors Sally J. Rogers and Sally Ozonoff, both of whom are professors of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, Davis, report that beginning treatment in one of these “Infant Start” programs as early as six months after birth could improve symptoms and alleviate developmental delay.

In fact, participating in these programs led to such improvement that most who received the treatment were found to have neither ASD nor developmental delay by the age of three, the study authors said. The study looked at only seven kids, but is the first to look at the effect of starting therapy during the first year of life, said USA Today’s Karen Weintraub.

“Most of the children in the study, six out of seven, caught up in all of their learning skills and their language by the time they were 2 to 3,” Rogers, who was the lead author of the study and was also responsible for developing the Infant Start therapy, said in a statement Monday. “Most children with ASD are barely even getting diagnosed by then.”

“For the children who are achieving typical developmental rates, we are essentially ameliorating their developmental delays. We have speeded up their developmental rates and profiles, not for every child in our sample, but for six of the seven,” she continued, crediting the parents of these youngsters for their role in the pilot study.

“Parents are there every day with their babies. It’s the little moments of diapering, feeding, playing on the floor, going for a walk, being on a swing, that are the critical learning moments for babies. Those moments are what parents can capitalize on in a way that nobody else really can,” Rogers added.

According to Shirley S. Wang of the Wall Street Journal, Rogers, Ozonoff and colleagues from UC Davis and York University enrolled the parents of seven babies who were at high risk of developing autism in 12 weekly instructional sessions designed to teach them how to improve the social communication and play of their infants. Most of those youngsters were able to catch-up developmentally to low-risk babies that did not demonstrate ASD symptoms.

“By 3 years of age, five of the seven babies were considered to be developing normally and had no diagnosis of autism-spectrum disorder, or ASD. Four had older siblings diagnosed with the condition,” Wang said. “Researchers believe repeated social stimulation and making engagement with other people more appealing helped the babies learn more about social information, which is critical to their learning about language and communication.”

Rogers told Weintraub that the findings do not indicate the program helped children recover from autism, since those infants were too young to have been officially diagnosed with the disorder. However, she said it showed that Infant Start showed promise as a potential treatment for young kids experiencing ASD-related symptoms, though it remains unclear if the program is better than therapy typically offered to three- and four-year-olds.

Likewise, University of Connecticut child neuropsychologist Deborah Fein told USA Today that it was far too soon to declare Infant Start therapy an effective cure or treatment for autism, since some babies that appear as though they will have terrible issues simply outgrow them. However, she said that the results were impressive enough to warrant further investigation in a larger study – something that Rogers said will happen once funding is available.

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