Early intervention can drastically reduce autism diagnosis in children, groundbreaking study finds

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Early intervention with infants at risk of autism through parent-led therapy improves the child's social development to such an extent they are two thirds less likely to meet the clinical criteria for an autism diagnosis, world-first research finds.

Early intervention with infants at risk of autism through therapy led by their parents improves the child's social development to such an extent they are two-thirds less likely to meet the clinical criteria for an autism diagnosis, according to world-first research by the Telethon Kids Institute.

Professor Whitehouse said this meant nothing was happening in the first couple of years after a child's birth when the brain was developing rapidly and therapies may have more effect.The researchers wanted to test if they could provide therapy in those early years to better support the child's development and reduce the likelihood or intensity of disabilities.

They videotaped the parents and children playing and interacting and then gave them feedback on the unique way their child was communicating, to help the parents interact with their children. She and her 18-month-old daughter Angelina participated in the study. Ms Celisano said her daughter was in an at-risk category because her eight-year-old son, Michele, had been diagnosed with autism.Over 10 sessions lasting about 75 minutes each, a researcher would observe and video record them as she and Angelina played with toys, read a book or had a meal.

Ms Celisano believed participating in the study had helped shape her daughter's brain at a critical stage of her development.

 

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Dear — when will you be reporting on articles and studies like those:

Until the diagnosis criteria for Autism is revamped to reflect reality rather than the sexist, ableist nonsense based solely on social constructs of gender that it is now, these studies cannot do anything BUT produce false outcomes.

Even the person tweeting knew this was BS *reduce autism DIAGNOSIS in CHILDREN* We can reduce the diagnoses for farsightedness too if we started teaching kids to just deal and didn't screen for bad eyesight...

How can you reduce the risk of someone being autistic when they were born with it. This results of this study don't make sense. If you are born left handed learning to write with your right hand doesn't reduce the risk of you being left handed.

Ok buddy.

GROUNDBREAKING?!

if you'd done any sort of due diligence before publishing this sh*t, you would have seen days ago that other stupid news media organisation published it and what many autistic people and others had to say about it, eg see the for profit company the prof is director of

This has actually been said for years and it's bullshit. You are born autistic no amount of early intervention is going to change that What will happen is a lot of trauma and anxiety will occur in the autistic kids setting them up for a lifetime of troubles.

yet more rhetoric treating autism as a disease to avoid or ignore instead of a mental health issue to help people live with.

Sincerely I would like to see more effort at researching the main cause of autism, right now we have to wait until the child turns three for having an accurate diagnosis. A younger child could simply imitate the posture and the gestures of his senior without being autistic.

What, ya gonna shock them?

ok autism speaks stan

No.

the reporting on this is really unfortunate for a therapy that i, as an autistic person advocating for the children in this community, am genuinely excited about. autism is not being prevented here, the trauma that comes from different modes of communication is!

Eh? Why would you want to reduce diagnosis? If it helps autistic children, that’s great, but wouldn’t you still want to know you had it instead of being left in the dark? Or is this somehow implying that autism is something you develop, instead of something you’re born with

Groundbreaking study posits may have been better. Or small trial indicates. Idk. Hope it can actually help some people though for sure

This article is pathetic!!! Get a clue!!! Early intervention does NOT reduce diagnosis in autism!! Please quit spreading misinformation!! This will hurt families that need real help! Pathetic. 😞this should be removed!!

Reducing a diagnosis? That's ludicrous. Autism is for life, and if you ask us, most autistic folks wouldn't change their diagnosis. It's who we are. This sounds eugenics-like and the research sucks. ActuallyAustistic autisticadult autisticparent noeugenics

Autism diagnosis is not a bad thing! Autistic people are autistic whether you like it or not - they need to be supported as autistic people instead of you trying to 'fix' them and make them be something they're not. This breaks my heart.

lol get ratioed

Or they were over diagnosing and the child(ren) was/were really not autistic.

this is called masking. it's enormously damaging to autistic folks' mental health, especially to children.

Autism is something fundamental in someone’s being, teaching a kid eye contact and social cues won’t erase the fact they are autistic…not getting a diagnosis early is dangerous.

This is a bad article with bad wording

reducing diagnosis…..? they’re still autistic. you’re just teaching them to mask.

delet this

This is literally child abuse. Delete this

I’m confused by the wording. Reduce the diagnosis or does it reverse autism? Is that even a thing?

“Reducing diagnosis” just means there’s going to be a lot of children taught to mask their whole lives and then struggling for years to get a delayed diagnosis. This is not a good thing. At all. This is just harming Autistics.

Bull.

Shame on you - it would’ve been so easy for you to have one conversation with an actually autistic adult to find out what the autistic community think about this sort of behaviour modification “therapy”. One phone call. Do better!

Let's discuss how autism isn't a bad thing Sincerely, a successful, intelligent, autistic adult. If it weren't for my autism, I wouldn't be half as smart 3 but thanks besties

Speaking of eugenics NPCanadian

this is complete and utter rubbish so you think by dealing with visible outward signs by masking that will cure them Autism is a genetic and developmental condition therapy does not cure it. this is frankly just wrong and harmful to children that need real help not quack science.

Reducing the number of diagnoses doesn't reduce the number of kids w/autism - it just increases the number of kids who will grow up without the resources they need to thrive.

As an autistic person, this raises all sorts of red flags. Neurotypicals need to stop pretending that their kids aren’t autistic. Therapy won’t decrease the number of diagnoses.

Why would you want to avoid diagnosing autistic kids? They aren't going to magically become neurotypical.

JaneKThompson66

just because I lived most of my life without an autism diagnosis doesn't mean I didn't have autism it just meant I was denied the assistance I needed and struggled because of it

PattyArquette High sugar diets should be examined. But they won’t be.

i literally have to suffer every day trying to get help for autism as an adult (which i suspect i have) because my family refused to get me treatment and instead forced me to mask.

PattyArquette Irresponsible headline good gravy

Absolutely disgusting. This is forcing kids through torture.

Fuck this. Fuck everything about this. It's not something to be cured. All this is going to do is raise a generation of kids ashamed of who they are,masking until they completely burn out with no concept of who they really are. Stop wasting money on 'cures', spend it on support.

Why would you want to reduce diagnoses?

No. Late diagnosis is extremely difficult to deal with all you will be doing is forcing autistic kids to pretend to be neurotypical until they can’t cope any more and have a breakdown. That’s what happened to me.

This comment section made me feel so much better.

So key point is it reduces diagnosis, not autism. These children are still likely to be diagnosed, just older after years of masking & little support.

why is autism treated like cancer? something that needs to be eradicated? there’s nothing wrong w/ being autistic & there’s nothing wrong with having symptoms of autism. eugenics & aba therapy should be banned ActuallyAutistic

Yes because less diagnosed kids totally equals less autistic kids 🙄 no it'll just increase the amount of traumatised kids with mental health issues from masking so much because the general public is still so intolerable of autistic people.

Earlier this year I read about a study on 10,000 people that aims to isolate genetic and environmental factors responsible for autism, perhaps with the aim to suppress it for future generations. It has been put on hold after public outcry.

Less “vaxxes”! Surprisingly - well, not really - Amish folk almost NEVER get autism - know what else they don’t get? Mmhmmmm….

I hope they perform studies to back this up, it would be a shame if it pushed off early diagnosis as so many doctors (rightly) wait to put labels on children’s behavior so early as it is.

You’re reporting this wrong and it’s dangerous.

What they mean is: “If we find out they’re autistic at a young age, we have a better of teaching to hide their autism so they don’t embarrass us”. It’s disgusting.

Sounds like eugenics mixed with beating your kid so if they fear doing anything that their parents don’t like that has to do with autism.

What the fuck is this supposed to mean?

Orrrrr, we could just let people be who they are without conversion therapy, but what do I know? 🤷🤡

this is deeply fucked up... it would have been nice to go online today without seeing an article calling for people like me to be made more invisible to society, but here we are

Hey bff I have autism and I don’t feel like being cured so I will not be participating, yall stay safe tho ❤️

This study is not “groundbreaking” it’s bullshit and pseudoscience. What this study has done is forced children to mask at an early age, which can cause suicidality later in life. Autism is a neurotype, not a mental illness or something that needs to be cured.

Love that autism is being treated as a disease and that there is no way to tell if a child will have autism till they are at least 3 and over. Also, there is no high risk of autism or low risk of autism I was born the 4th child in my family and I was the only one with autism.

That’s nice to know that science regards me as a problem to eradicate before it becomes ‘too much’ to deal with.

maybe i’m just speaking from a place of ignorance but i don’t see why we treat autism as a such a bad thing and something that needs to be “cured”…

It would be real cool if (neurotypical) parents around the world stopped trying to pretend their autistic kids aren’t autistic because they find it more convenient… and also stopped trying to “cure” autism, that’d be cool too 😐 Love your kids for who they are

So this is bullshit.

This is just masking

Someone being excited about something like this is frightening. 😩 Diagnosing people later isn’t a positive and does not help someone who is autistic AT ALL. But of course this isn’t about helping autistic people. It’s about making things more convenient for everyone else.

Literally all this will do is create more kids masking - in short ‘how to fuck up kids until adulthood’

hello, Covert ABA

Early intervention to teach young kids to mask and thus avoid a diagnosis does not sound helpful. Quite the contrary. Regards, Someone who has struggled with mental illness immensely due to not being diagnosed as ActuallyAustistic until after 40.

If someone is autistic they’re autistic no “intervention “ is gonna stop that so your delaying an inevitable diagnosis which just hurts the person . There is nothing good about “preventing “ diagnosis because that’s al your doing they’re still autistic

This seems really irresponsible and more about avoiding an Autism diagnosis, than doing anything to benefit Autistic children. How is teaching kids to further mask symptoms that may lead to diagnosis, helpful?

Autism is a neurotype, not a disease, and it can't be 'cured', it can only either be ignored by professionals refusing to give a diagnosis or children will learn how to mask and not 'appear autistic' anymore. This is disgusting, bad reporting, and ABC should take this down ASAP

my son is autistic from vaccines this is bogus

As an autistic person who was diagnosed late in life, this headline is dangerous af. As a journalism grad, I'm disappointed with the lack of real comprehensive reporting on this.

I'm sure this won't backfire at all.

1)INFANTS... INFANTS were identified as being AT RISK for autism (WHO T/F_CK KNOWS IF TGEY WOULD HAVE ACTUALLY FIT THE DIAGNOSIS BY 3-4 or 5) 2) So (follow the ridiculous logic here) intervene at a time where an actual diagnosis of ASD CANT BE DETERMINED & IS UNKOWN IF ASD 1/

so they’re teaching them to trick the diagnosis. that is NOT a good thing.

So it's not about helping disabled people it's about kicking us off the NDIS. The government is already doing well enough at that, they don't need the public broadcaster advocating teaching masking to children so they don't get actual help for their ASD

this is unacceptable. reducing diagnosis should not be the goal. supporting autistic kids to grow into a thriving adulthood is what is needed. the article itself isn't as bad as the headline, but regardless, 'intervention' is not helpful. autism is not a disease to be cured.

Reducing autism diagnoses and reducing autism are very different things. Reducing autism diagnosis will lead to more kids suffering. This is messed up.

If maternal health, early childhood educators, and GP’s had known more about the nuanced signs of ASD my son would have received the help he needed much earlier than 8yrs old by which time, it has had a significant effect on his self esteem and mental health. 1/2

Remember when the thing to do was to beat left-handed kids?

Kinda sounds like kids are being taught to mask from an early age and therefore missing out on vital support during the school years because they don't meet the criteria for diagnosis anymore.

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