Breakthrough in autism detection.

[Aurehn]

This is actually really damn cool stuff (as an up-and-coming Socio-Linguistic Anthropologist especially)...

http://www.news.ku.edu/2010/july/19/lena.shtml

[Apiary]

I know so little about autism, but I heard Temple Grandin on NPR and found her fascinating and brilliant. Her speech is affected – as if each word is a tiny explosion. I can’t imagine how difficult it had to be for her to even get the opportunity to achieve what she has. She may be the most, and is at least certainly among the most, accomplished agricultural engineers of our age. I had to see the movie – what a relentless and determined individual.

The article made me wonder if autism also has a hearing disconnect. I know Grandin processes visually.

Any idea?

Don’t mean to be a noob, just outside my field of expertise.

[Aurehn]

It is possible. After all, the speech centers in the brain are located near/in the parietal lobes, which is where hearing processing takes place as well. However, what is shown by this study is differences in rapid motor control associated with speech. They use pre-speech vocalization...a baby's babble...in order to detect differences between developing children with and without autism -- and have found that 86% of the time, the patterns they found indicate a difference between "normal" and autistic development.

86% may not sound that great to some, but as a researcher, having a correlation above the 50% mark is incredible...having it this close to 100% practically never happens. They still need to refine the technology, method and patterns, but this will most likely become a viable, widely-accepted test for early autism screening.