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 When and how long a baby looks at other people’s eyes offers the earliest behavioral sign to date of whether a child is likely to develop autism, scientists are reporting. 
 
 In a study published Wednesday, researchers using eye-tracking technology found that children who were found to have autism at age 3 looked less at people’s eyes when they were babies than children who did not develop autism. But contrary to what the researchers expected, the difference was not apparent at birth. It emerged in the next few months and autism experts said that might suggest a window during which the progression toward autism can be halted or slowed. 
 
 The study, published online in the journal Nature, found that infants who later developed autism began spending less time looking at people’s eyes between 2 and 6 months of age and paid less attention to eyes as they grew older. By contrast, babies who did not develop autism looked increasingly at people’s eyes until about 9 months old, and then kept their attention to eyes fairly constant into toddlerhood. 
 
 “This paper is a major leap forward,” said Dr. Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, a pediatrician and autism researcher at the University of Alberta, who was not involved in the study. “Documenting that there’s a developmental difference between 2 and 6 months is a major, major finding.” 
 
 The authors, Warren R. Jones and Ami Klin, both of the Marcus Autism Center and Emory University, also found that babies who showed the steepest decline in looking at people’s eyes over time developed the most severe autism. 
 
 “Kids whose eye fixation falls off most rapidly are the ones who later on are the most socially disabled and show the most symptoms,” said Dr. Jones, director of research at the autism center. “These are the earliest known signs of social disability, and they are associated with outcome and with symptom severity. Our ultimate goal is to translate this discovery into a tool for early identification” of children with autism. 
 
 The eye-tracking differences are not something parents and pediatricians would be able to perceive without the technology and expertise of an autism clinic, Dr. Jones said. “We don’t want to create concern in parents that if a child isn’t looking them in the eyes all the time, it’s a problem,” he said. “It’s not. Children are looking all over the place.” 
 
 Autism therapies have not yet been developed for young babies, but there are efforts to adapt intensive behavioral therapy for use with children as young as 12 months, Dr. Jones said. 
 
 Diagnoses of autism have increased, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from one child in 150 in 2002 to one in 88 in 2008. The reasons are unclear, although some factors could be greater awareness of the disorder and a growing number of older fathers. 
 
 Dr. Jones and Dr. Klin, who directs the autism center, studied two groups of babies. One group was at high risk for autism, with a 20 times greater likelihood of developing it because they had siblings with the disorder. The other group was at low risk, with no relatives with autism. 
 
 The researchers assessed 110 children, from 2 months to 2 years of age, 10 times while watching videos of friendly women acting like playful caregivers. Eye-tracking technology traced when the babies looked at the women’s eyes, mouths and bodies, as well as toys or other objects in the background. At age 3, the children were evaluated for autism. Ultimately, researchers used data from 36 boys, 11 of whom developed autism. (They excluded data from girls because only two developed autism.) 
 
 While the number of children studied was small — and the researchers are now studying more children — experts not involved in the study said the results were significant because of the careful and repeated measurements that were not just snapshots, but showed change over time. 
 
 “It’s well done and very important,” said Dr. Geraldine Dawson, director of the Center for Autism Diagnosis and Treatment at Duke University. She said it was notable that “early on these babies look quite normal; this really gives us a clue to brain development.” 
 
 She said a possible explanation was that early in life, activities like looking at faces are essentially reflexes “controlled by lower cortical regions of the brain that are likely intact” in children with autism. But “as the brain develops, babies begin to use these behaviors in a more intentional way. They can look at what they want to look at. We think that these higher cortical regions are the ones that are not working the same” as in typical children. 
 
 Dr. John N. Constantino, a child psychiatrist and pediatrician at Washington University in St. Louis, said the study showed that “babies who develop autism are for the most part doing an awful lot of things right for the first few months.” Perhaps the genes that drive autism begin to derail typical development after that, so that “what you are looking at moment by moment, day by day, second by second, is completely different from what other children are looking at, and the cumulative experience is what sends you off into the trajectory of autism.” 
 
 The researchers found that children who developed autism paid somewhat more attention to mouths and sustained attention to bodies past the age when typical children became less interested. Even more noticeable was that children who developed autism looked more at objects after the first year, while typical children’s interest in objects declined. 
 
 “We’re measuring what babies see, but more importantly we’re measuring what they don’t see,” Dr. Jones said. 
 
 Dr. Dawson said that looking at people teaches babies about “facial expressions and language and gesture. If the baby who’s developing autism is paying attention to objects, they’re really losing out on those opportunities.” 
 
 Before this study, experts said, research found that potential signs of autism — including differences in temperament, eye contact and pointing out objects — could be detected late in a child’s first year. Most cases of autism in children are diagnosed between ages 3 and 5, although the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screening children at between 18 and 24 months. 
 
 But the new study suggests the need to develop therapies that begin even earlier. “The train has long left the station if you don’t start intervention until 18 months,” Dr. Constantino said. 
 
 Dr. Jones said eye contact was “just one very important channel.” 
 
 He continued, “I think we’d see the same things if we were measuring a child’s social reciprocity via touch or auditory listening preferences, but those are harder to measure.” 
 
 He and Dr. Klin advocate the eventual use of eye tracking and other measures in social development growth charts, similar to height and weight charts. Still, the authors and other experts cautioned that the results required confirmation in many more children. 
 
 Autism is so complex and varied that eye-tracking is unlikely to be able to identify every condition on the autism spectrum, Dr. Zwaigenbaum and others said. But they said the study helped illustrate the need for therapies to increase social engagement among very young infants, “either by intensifying the experience for them or making it pleasurable in other ways,” Dr. Constantino said. 
 
 “It really does present an opportunity for seeing if we could do some preventative interventions,” said Dr. Sally Ozonoff, vice chairwoman for research in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the MIND Institute of the University of California, Davis. “Maybe you could keep the child from heading into that decline, so it doesn’t turn into autism.” ||||| By Serena Gordon 
 
 HealthDay Reporter 
 
 WEDNESDAY, Nov. 6 (HealthDay News) -- At least one sign of autism may begin as early as 2 months of life, new research suggests. 
 
 The study of 110 babies found that infants later diagnosed with autism showed a decline in the amount of attention they paid to other people's eyes beginning at 2 months and continuing until 24 months. 
 
 "We found that signs of autism are measurable and observable within the first months of life," said study author Warren Jones, director of research at the Marcus Autism Center at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. 
 
 "These are the earliest signs of autism ever observed," Jones said, noting they may be associated with symptom severity. 
 
 Children with autism have impaired communication and social skills and often exhibit repetitive behaviors. Symptoms may be mild, as in Asperger syndrome, or severe, as in full-blown autism. It's estimated that one in 88 U.S. children has an autism spectrum disorder. 
 
 Despite the observed decline in eye attention, the researchers said infants later diagnosed with autism did pay more attention to people's eyes than was expected. 
 
 "This insight, the preservation of some early eye-looking, is important because, in the future, if we were able to use similar technologies to identify early signs of social disability, we could then consider interventions to build on that early eye-looking and help reduce some of the associated disabilities that often accompany autism," said Jones. 
 
 Autism therapies work best when begun while the brain is still developing. "This early developmental window may be an opportunity to intervene that we didn't know we had before," Jones added. 
 
 The findings, released online Nov. 6 as a letter in the journal Nature, need to be confirmed in larger studies before they can lead to changes in clinical practice. 
 
 Deficits in eye contact are a key sign of autism spectrum disorders, according to background information in the study. But it wasn't clear when such deficits begin. 
 
 Currently, autism is often diagnosed using a scientifically validated checklist designed for youngsters between 16 months and 30 months old, according to Autism Speaks. 
 
 For the study, the researchers enrolled 59 babies considered to be at high risk of developing an autism spectrum disorder because they had a sibling with autism. Another 51 babies were enrolled who were considered low-risk. 
 
 To see if they could pinpoint when lack of interest in other people's eyes begins, the research team used eye-tracking technology to measure the babies' focus when shown videos of caregivers engaged in normal behaviors. 
 
 The babies were shown the videos at 10 time points between 2 months and 2 years of age. 
 
 By age 3, just one child from the low-risk group was later diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, compared to 12 youngsters in the high-risk group. Because just two of these children were female, the researchers limited their analysis to the 11 male children diagnosed with autism. They compared them to 25 typically developing children from the low-risk group. 
 
 The researchers noted that the decline in interest in other people's eyes began at 2 months and continued declining until 2 years. 
 
 One expert called the findings a significant advance. 
 
 "This was a very well-done, very revealing study documenting in a precise and systematic way that children who are later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders have demonstrable and progressive differences in visual regard in infancy. It's a breakthrough finding," said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York in New Hyde Park, N.Y. 
 
 "Whether this might permit accurate and reliable diagnosis earlier is still very unclear. But if it does lead to earlier identification, it may lead to the development of earlier interventions," he said. 
 
 Jones pointed out that these deficits aren't something that parents would be able to see on their own. "This is not something a parent can see by just holding a baby. We collected many measurements over time," he explained. 
 
 "Parents shouldn't be concerned if their babies aren't looking at them 100 percent of the time, but if they do have persistent concerns, they should talk to their child's pediatrician," advised Jones. ||||| Image copyright Kay Hinton/Emory University Image caption Eye tracking experiments were used to detect signs of autism 
 
 An early indication of autism can be identified in babies under six months old, a study suggests. 
 
 US researchers, writing in Nature, analysed how infants looked at faces from birth to the age of three. 
 
 They found children later diagnosed with autism initially developed normally but showed diminished eye contact - a hallmark of autism - between two and six months of age. 
 
 A UK expert said the findings raise hope for early interventions. 
 
 In the study, researchers led by Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta used eye-tracking technology to measure the way babies looked at and responded to social clues. 
 
 These early markers are extremely important for us to identify - the earlier we can diagnose a child who has one of these disorders - such as autism - the earlier we can provide intervention and development Dr Deborah Riby, Durham University 
 
 They found infants later diagnosed with autism had shown a steady decline in attention to the eyes of other people from the age of two months onwards, when watching videos of natural human interactions. 
 
 Lead researcher Dr Warren Jones told BBC News: "It tells us for the first time that it's possible to detect some signs of autism in the first months of life. 
 
 "These are the earliest signs of autism that we've ever observed." 
 
 The study, in collaboration with the Marcus Autism Center and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, followed 59 infants who had a high risk of autism because they had siblings with the life-long condition, and 51 infants at low risk. 
 
 Dr Jones and colleague Dr Ami Klin followed them to the age of three, when the children were formally assessed for autism. 
 
 Thirteen of the children were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders - a range of disorders that includes autism and Asperger's syndrome - 11 boys and two girls. 
 
 The researchers then went back to look at the eye-tracking data, and what they found was surprising. 
 
 "In infants with autism, eye contact is declining already in the first six months of life," said Dr Jones. 
 
 But he added this could be seen only with sophisticated technology and would not be visible to parents. 
 
 "It's not something that parents would be able to see by themselves at all. If parents have concerns they should talk to their paediatrician." 
 
 Dr Deborah Riby, of the department of psychology at Durham University, said the study provided an insight into the timing of atypical social attention in children who might go on to develop autism. 
 
 Autism spectrum disorders Autism and Asperger's syndrome are part of a range of related developmental disorders known as autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) 
 
 They begin in childhood and last through adulthood. 
 
 ASD can cause a wide range of symptoms, which are grouped into three categories including problems with social interaction, impaired communication skills and unusual patterns of thought and behaviour Source: NHS Choices 
 
 "These early markers are extremely important for us to identify - the earlier we can diagnose a child who has one of these disorders - such as autism - the earlier we can provide intervention and development," she said. 
 
 Caroline Hattersley, head of information, advice and advocacy at the National Autistic Society, said the research was "based on a very small sample and needs to be replicated on a far larger scale before any concrete conclusions can be drawn". 
 
 "Autism is a very complex condition," she said. 
 
 "No two people with autism are the same, and so a holistic approach to diagnosis is required that takes into account all aspects of an individual's behaviour. A more comprehensive approach allows all of a person's support needs to be identified. 
 
 "It's vital that everyone with autism can access a diagnosis, as it can be key to unlocking the right support which can enable people with the condition to reach their full potential." 
 
 The research is published in the journal Nature.
– A new autism study makes what looks to be a significant discovery: The first signs show up as early as two months of age in the form of reduced eye contact by babies, reports the New York Times. If the findings hold up, they could provide doctors with the earliest warning yet that a child is developing the disorder—a big deal because research suggests that the earlier treatment begins, the more effective it is. The study "tells us for the first time that it's possible to detect some signs of autism in the first months of life," one of the Emory University researchers tells the BBC. "These are the earliest signs of autism that we've ever observed." The researchers studied two groups of kids from birth to age 2 with sophisticated eye-tracking technology. One of the groups was deemed high risk because of a sibling with autism. The researchers then went back when the kids were 3 and found a clear correlation between those who had been recently diagnosed with autism and their eye contact as babies. The dropoff began between two and six months of age, and the more severe it was, the more severe the case of autism. An autism researcher not involved with the study called it a "major, major finding." The researchers say this isn't something parents would likely be able to notice on their own, notes HealthDay via US News & Report. Nor do they want parents to panic if their child isn't maintaining constant eye contact. But "if they do have persistent concerns, they should talk to their child's pediatrician," adds one.