Read this short article published on the Cercle Psy website.

Pediatricians, who are the first point of contact for families, have a valuable role to play in the early detection of autism. However, the short duration of their consultations hinders effective observation of the child, and thus identification of autistic symptoms.

… This is the conclusion of a North American study led by Terisa Gabrielsen, Doctor of Philosophy at the Center for the Disabled at Brigham Young University in Utah.

The aim was to quantify the number of autistic children not detected during these consultations, and to orchestrate a moreoptimum early detection program. The study involved 42 children aged between 15 and 33 months, some of whom showed typical symptoms of autism. The children were filmed for 10 minutes, and the videos reviewed by a team of expert psychologists specializing in early childhood and autism. In just 10 minutes, 89% of these children displayed behaviours typical of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Yet 39% of these children were not correctly identified by the experts!

The study’s (bitter) conclusion: if these experts, despite being placed in the right conditions, were unable to detect autistic signs in these children, it’s clear that a routine paediatric consultation – which rarely lasts more than 15 minutes – is not a rich enough source of information. This means that many children escape the vigilance of their doctors, and therefore cannot benefit from early detection and treatment. As a simple consultation is not enough, we need to include parents and the child’s main carers in the early detection process, as they have additional information on their child’s development.

Gabrielsen, T. and al. (2015). « Identifying Autism in a Brief Observation, » Pediatrics. doi: 10.1542/peds.2014-1428