Autism is a form of neurodiversity characterised, among other things, by differences in social interaction. Previous research has shown that autistic people perceive faces differently from neurotypical people, and that their brains respond differently too. The question is whether these differences are already present in infancy and, ultimately, whether they could contribute to identifying autism at an earlier age.
How Does the Infant Brain Respond to Faces?
For her study, Fico combined the results of all earlier studies that examined how the brains of young children (aged 6 to 24 months) respond to faces. At this age, children have not yet received an autism diagnosis. Therefore, these studies compared two groups: infants at elevated likelihood of autism (that is, children with an autistic sibling) and infants at typical likelihood of autism.
At first, she found no differences in brain responses between the two groups. 'However, when we looked specifically at the children who were later diagnosed with autism, we did find subtle differences in brain responses,' Fico explains. 'This suggests that children who were later diagnosed with autism already processed faces differently during infancy.'
Towards an Earlier Diagnosis
'This is an important finding,' says Fico. Although we cannot use these brain responses yet to predict which individual infants will later be diagnosed with autism. 'We still have a long way to go before earlier recognition becomes a reality. More longitudinal studies that follow children over time are needed. Moreover, an earlier diagnosis will likely require other types of information, such as a child's genetic predisposition and behavioural characteristics.'