Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Sep 22:8:49.
doi: 10.1186/s13229-017-0167-3. eCollection 2017.

Neurocognitive and observational markers: prediction of autism spectrum disorder from infancy to mid-childhood

Rachael Bedford #  1 , Teodora Gliga #  2 , Elizabeth Shephard  3 , Mayada Elsabbagh  4 , Andrew Pickles  1 , Tony Charman  5 , Mark H Johnson  2
Affiliations

Neurocognitive and observational markers: prediction of autism spectrum disorder from infancy to mid-childhood

Rachael Bedford et al. Mol Autism. .

Abstract

Background: Prospective studies of infants at high familial risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have identified a number of putative early markers that are associated with ASD outcome at 3 years of age. However, some diagnostic changes occur between toddlerhood and mid-childhood, which raises the question of whether infant markers remain associated with diagnosis into mid-childhood.

Methods: First, we tested whether infant neurocognitive markers (7-month neural response to eye gaze shifts and 14-month visual disengagement latencies) as well as an observational marker of emerging ASD behaviours (the Autism Observation Scale for Infants; AOSI) predicted ASD outcome in high-risk (HR) 7-year-olds with and without an ASD diagnosis (HR-ASD and HR-No ASD) and low risk (LR) controls. Second, we tested whether the neurocognitive markers offer predictive power over and above the AOSI.

Results: Both neurocognitive markers distinguished children with an ASD diagnosis at 7 years of age from those in the HR-No ASD and LR groups. Exploratory analysis suggested that neurocognitive markers may further differentiate stable versus lost/late diagnosis across the 3 to 7 year period, which will need to be tested in larger samples. At both 7 and 14 months, combining the neurocognitive marker with the AOSI offered a significantly improved model fit over the AOSI alone.

Conclusions: Infant neurocognitive markers relate to ASD in mid-childhood, improving predictive power over and above an early observational marker. The findings have implications for understanding the neurodevelopmental mechanisms that lead from risk to disorder and for identification of potential targets of pre-emptive intervention.

Keywords: Autism; Diagnosis; High risk; Infants; Neurocognitive; Prediction; Siblings.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Ethical approval was obtained from the NHS National Research Ethics Service (NHS RES London REC 08/H0718/76; 14/LO/0170). Parents provided written informed consent.

Consent for publication

Not applicable

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
a P400 difference score at 7 months by 7-year-old ASD outcome. b Disengagement latency at 14 months by 7-year-old ASD outcome
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
a AOSI Total Score at 7 months by 7-year-old ASD outcome. b AOSI Total Score at 14 months by 7-year-old ASD outcome
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
a P400 difference score at 7 months by stability of ASD outcome between 3 and 7 years. b Disengagement latency at 14 months by stability of ASD outcome between 3 and 7 years
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
a AOSI total score at 7 months by stability of ASD outcome between 3 and 7 years. b AOSI total score at 14 months by stability of ASD outcome between 3 and 7 years
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Cuthbert BN, Insel TR. Toward the future of psychiatric diagnosis: the seven pillars of RDoC. BMC Med. 2013;11(1):1. doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-11-126. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Robbins TW, Gillan CM, Smith DG, de Wit S, Ersche KD. Neurocognitive endophenotypes of impulsivity and compulsivity: towards dimensional psychiatry. Trends Cogn Sci. 2012;16(1):81–91. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2011.11.009. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Charman T, Jones CR, Pickles A, Simonoff E, Baird G, Happé F. Defining the cognitive phenotype of autism. Brain Res. 2011;1380:10–21. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2010.10.075. - DOI - PubMed
    1. American Psychiatric Association . Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5) Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association; 2013.
    1. Johnson MH, Gliga T, Jones E, Charman T. Annual research review: infant development, autism, and ADHD—early pathways to emerging disorders. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2015;56(3):228–247. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12328. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types