It's in the cries.

icerose

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I thought this study was very interesting.

http://news.yahoo.com/autism-risk-may-revealed-babies-cries-153007478.html

A computer-aided analysis showed the cries of babies at heightened risk for autism were higher and more variable in pitch than those of babies not at heightened risk for autism, the researchers said.
This result was only true when the cries were caused by pain, such as when a baby fell and bumped his or her head, said study researcher Stephen Sheinkopf, a researcher at researcher at Brown Alpert Medical School's Women & Infants Hospital in Providence, R.I.

The three with the highest pitches of crying developed autism later.

Now granted, this was a small study, only 39 babies were studied, but it's very interesting to see the results that they could detect it as early as 6 months old.

I'm with the authors of this study that the earlier we can detect and start the intervention on children with autism the more we might be able to do for those children and their development.

I hope more studies like this can also finally put to bed the controversy over vaccinations.
 

mirandashell

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Hmmmmm..... 3 babies out of only 39 developed autism? I would like to know the criteria for taking part in the study as that seems a high proportion.
 

mirandashell

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Here we go:

The researchers recorded cries from 39 6-month old infants, 21 of whom were at risk for autism because they had an older sibling with the condition. The others were healthy babies with no family history of autism.

So 21 were known to be at higher risk. 18 thought to be at no risk. And 3 of the 21 at higher risk did develop it.

Does this actually tell us anything we didn't know?
 

icerose

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Here we go:



So 21 were known to be at higher risk. 18 thought to be at no risk. And 3 of the 21 at higher risk did develop it.

Does this actually tell us anything we didn't know?

Yeah, it's that they can detect which ones will develop it based on the pitch of their cries.
 

mirandashell

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Err.... no. It needs a lot more study before they can say that. It may have been just a coincidence that the 3 highest cries were those of the 3 babies who developed autism.

If they study one hundred groups of babies and that happens every single time, then it will gain credence.
 

Chrissy

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Babies should not be allowed to cry for experimental purposes!

:cry:
 

missesdash

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Did they just stab the babies with safety pins?

Interesting study. I've worked with a lot of kids that I suspect are autistic, but they are generally the parent's first child so they just think the child is "difficult." But I know it's not my place to ask "have you taken little so-and-so to a baby shrink?"

There is so much that parents think of as normal because they don't know anything about kids beyond their own.
 

Ambrosia

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Babies should not be allowed to cry for experimental purposes!

:cry:
Babies cry, Chrissy. That is a fact of life. Who said they were "allowed" to cry? Or caused to cry? It would be an easy thing to record the infants when they cried because they had a wet diaper or were hungry or bumped their heads. And those are all normal occurrences within the growing process.

Studying a set of infants by recording their cries is not the same as experimenting on them.
 

Chrissy

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Babies cry, Chrissy. That is a fact of life.

Whaaaaaat??? I had no idea. ;)

Who said they were "allowed" to cry? Or caused to cry? It would be an easy thing to record the infants when they cried because they had a wet diaper or were hungry or bumped their heads. And those are all normal occurrences within the growing process.
The picture I had in my head was allowing the babies to continue crying in order to record the pitch, length, "variableness," whatever that means.

Infants have no language, no understanding of time or place, no concept of patience or waiting or delayed gratification or whether someone will shortly be attending to them, or not. And therefore, they require an immediate response to cultivate feelings of safety and security. IMO, of course.

Studying a set of infants by recording their cries is not the same as experimenting on them.
I know that. I'm not on a rampage about it or anything. If it is simply observation while the mother or caretaker is there seeing to the infant's needs, I'm fine with it.
 

icerose

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Err.... no. It needs a lot more study before they can say that. It may have been just a coincidence that the 3 highest cries were those of the 3 babies who developed autism.

If they study one hundred groups of babies and that happens every single time, then it will gain credence.

I said so in my first post that it was a small study. You asked what knew things we'd learned. I answered. I'm not really sure what you want.
 

kikazaru

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It would be wonderful if they could identify children at risk for autism and intervene early but I question how effective this study is. I've worked with several children with autism and the only time they cried (other than frustration) in pain was when they REALLY hurt themselves. The normal bumps and injuries incurred on the playground by other children, didn't seem to induce the same tearful reaction in them. As a consequence we really had to watch them carefully (body language) to know how hurt they were. One child broke his wrist falling, and his only reaction was to pat it and hold it carefully.
 

Manuel Royal

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I said so in my first post that it was a small study. You asked what new things we'd learned. I answered. I'm not really sure what you want.
Well, your answer,

icerose said:
Yeah, it's that they can detect which ones will develop it based on the pitch of their cries.

-- describes a hypothesis, not a supportable conclusion. There's just not nearly enough data at this point to make a statement like that.
 

GinnieHazel

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I've worked with a lot of kids that I suspect are autistic, but they are generally the parent's first child so they just think the child is "difficult." But I know it's not my place to ask "have you taken little so-and-so to a baby shrink?"

There is so much that parents think of as normal because they don't know anything about kids beyond their own.

I completely know what you mean. High functioning autism is quite prevalent in my family and spread over three generations (that we know of) and I always thought we were just normal and the rest of the world was weird.

I would suggest you bring it up to see if they've heard of it or want to talk to their doctor. It sometimes feels like very few people have a good understanding of it.
 

mirandashell

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I said so in my first post that it was a small study. You asked what knew things we'd learned. I answered. I'm not really sure what you want.

I don't want anything. I was just pointing out that it is way too soon to make any judgements on this study. In any scientific area, studies have to be made again and again and again before we can give the results any credence.

A small study like the one above means nothing really.
 

MattW

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I don't want anything. I was just pointing out that it is way too soon to make any judgements on this study. In any scientific area, studies have to be made again and again and again before we can give the results any credence.

A small study like the one above means nothing really.
The only conclusion from that study is that more study is needed. The fact that there is some indication in a small group could be used to generate funding for a study with appropriate size and scope for more statistical evidence.
 

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It would be wonderful if they could identify children at risk for autism and intervene early but I question how effective this study is. I've worked with several children with autism and the only time they cried (other than frustration) in pain was when they REALLY hurt themselves. The normal bumps and injuries incurred on the playground by other children, didn't seem to induce the same tearful reaction in them. As a consequence we really had to watch them carefully (body language) to know how hurt they were. One child broke his wrist falling, and his only reaction was to pat it and hold it carefully.


Not to make light of the seriousness of the LACK of there being a "pain alarm claxon" in autistic kids ... but ...


I was just telling a friend of mine last night about an asperger's kid I used to babysit for, and I likened that child's reaction to pain to the following scene (called the Blind Hermit Scene) from Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by0KWTT7b8E

A very similar delay to the scream -- a delay so extreme it was almost comical-- was very common for that child.
 

missesdash

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Sorta, kinda related: Aspergers has been removed from the DSM-V. Well not removed, but instead of it's own disorder, it's now under the autism spectrum.

This doesn't seem consequential enough for its ownthread, but apparently some people are quite pissed about it.
 

missesdash

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Asperger's has always been on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum.

But it was listed as a separate diagnosis. Now it won't be. Let me find a link....

Here we are

The other major change proposed for DSM-5 was a reorganization that would collapse a number of autism-related conditions treated as separate disorders in DSM-IV into a single "autism spectrum disorder" category.

Aspergers is one of them.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/DSM-5/36206
 
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TerzaRima

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Hmmmmm..... 3 babies out of only 39 developed autism? I would like to know the criteria for taking part in the study as that seems a high proportion.

The babies being studied were siblings of children already diagnosed with autism. If you have a sibling with autism, your risk of autism is much, much higher than that of the general population.
 

Ambrosia

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From further down in the article:

If confirmed in future studies, this finding could allow researchers to identify children at risk for autism long before the typical behavior problems become apparent, Sheinkopf said. Previous studies had suggested that 1-year old children with autism make sounds and cries that are not typical, but no one had looked at children as young as six months.

So it appears this study is building on other studies and moving the bar earlier into the child's life, from one year to 6 months. I just wonder what they could do that early in a child's life to help them with autism.
 

mirandashell

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The babies being studied were siblings of children already diagnosed with autism. If you have a sibling with autism, your risk of autism is much, much higher than that of the general population.

I did talk about that in a later post.

Misses - is Aspergers not being a seperate diagnosis going to cause problems for those that live with it?
 

missesdash

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