October 17, 2022
- Autism Parenting Magazine recently published an informative article examining childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD) and how it varies from ASD. CDD is a rare condition where children experience developmental delays and lose skills after two or three years old. It affects 1 in 100,000 boys. Only one girl will be affected for every eight boys diagnosed with the disorder. The main difference between CDD and ASD is that children with CDD follow a “normal” developmental pattern until they reach at least two years of age. Then these children start losing skills around ages three to four and even up to ten. In contrast, children with ASD typically miss developmental milestones earlier and usually do not experience such profound regressions at later ages.
- The Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development has received a $12 million grant from the federal government to develop artificial intelligence tools for detecting autism during infancy and identifying brain-based biomarkers of autism. Three artificial intelligence projects will receive funding. These projects involve analyzing videotapes of young children’s behavior, developing an algorithm to predict autism in infancy by using information from 260,000 health insurance claims, and monitoring brain wave activity synchronized with videotaped behavior of three- to six-year-old children diagnosed with autism. This grant extends the Duke Autism Center of Excellence research program for an additional five years.
- A new opinion article in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) explores the topic of health equity for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). The authors outline three systemic inequities: (1) stigma, exclusion, and devaluing of the equal worth of persons with IDDs; (2) underrepresentation in population epidemiology and research; and (3) inadequate access to high-quality care and social services tailored to needs. The article also includes recommendations for overcoming each of these inequities.
- Another study has examined common psychiatric conditions found in adults with autism. The research discovered prevalence of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (7%), bipolar disorder (2.5%), obsessive-compulsive disorder (3.02%), psychosis (18.3%), and schizophrenia (5.2%) were elevated in adults with autism, with corresponding odds ratios 8.24-10.74 times the general population. Sadly, depression (25.9%) and anxiety (22.4%) were also more prevalent. Lastly, the team found epilepsy to be 9.21 times more common in adults with autism than typically developing individuals.
