《of autism》.pdfVIP

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 95, pp. 13982–13987, November 1998 Psychology Movement analysis in infancy may be useful for early diagnosis of autism † ‡ PHILIP TEITELBAUM * , OSNAT TEITELBAUM *, JENNIFER NYE *, JOSHUA FRYMAN *, AND RALPH G. MAURER Departments of *Psychology and ‡Child Psychiatry, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 Contributed by Philip Teitelbaum, September 17, 1998 ABSTRACT All of the 17 autistic children studied in the sometimes as early as the first few days after birth, we suggest that present paper showed disturbances of movement that with our the study of movement disorders in infancy may serve as an methods could be detected clearly at the age of 4–6 months, and earlier indicator than presently available methods for diagnosing sometimes even at birth. We used the Eshkol–Wachman Move- autism in children. ment Analysis System in combination with still-frame videodisc As a framework for the study of infant movement, we decided analysis to study videos obtained from parents of children who to analyze the movements involved in the major motor milestones had been diagnosed as autistic by conventional methods, usually in the development of the baby from birth through the time that around 3 years old. The videos showed their behaviors when they he or she starts to walk: i.e., lying, righting, sitting, crawling, were infants, long before they had been diagnosed as autistic. The standing, and walking. Every child goes through these stages movement disorders varied from child to child. Disturbances (infants with severe neurological de