Early Brain Scans in Toddlers Can Predict Language Skills in Kids With Autism

Brain scans can predict autism risk among kids as early as one year of age according to a research conducted at the Autism Center of Excellence at the University of California, San Diego.

According to the study, the brain scans can be used to ascertain how a child with autism spectrum disorder may develop language skills. The brain scans also reveal the difference between kids with two possible subtypes of autism, the one with "language-learning ready" and the other without.

The new research demonstrates that even in sleep, a baby's brain response to spoken language can reveal whether that child is likely to develop speech, comprehension and social skills or whether his social and expressive disabilities are likely to remain profound.

"We discovered the reason why some babies get better and some don't," said neuroscientists Eric Courchesne, director of UC San Diego's Autism Center of Excellence. "That difference is present already at the very beginning, and that suggests there are two very different forms of autism, and that there may be different causes."

The scan may be useful in deciding appropriate therapy, said Eric Courchesne, an autism researcher at UC San Diego and senior author of the study. It was published in the journal Neuron.

"It suggests there are two very different types of autism," said Courchesne, co-director of the UC San Diego Autism Center of Excellence. "One type leads to the brain having social communication problems, but not language problems per se. The cause of that, we suspect, is different from the cause leading to a poor language outcome. We suspect that even in prenatal life, there are two different etiologies."