Could a hearing test help diagnose autism in babies?

Conclusion Autism is a developmental disorder that affects behaviour and social communication. It's usually diagnosed in children aged around two to four years old. We know there's a link between the condition and the ability to hear and process sounds – for example, some children with autism are very sensitive to sounds, while others don't respond to them at all. However, hearing problems seem to be part of autism, rather than a cause of it. This study doesn't mean, for example, that deaf people have autism. This study is interesting because it found a particular part of the ear, the cochlear, produces different effects in sound processing in children with autism, compared with those without the condition. It may help us understand how autism starts – for example, whether it happens before birth, when the baby's ears and other organs are still forming. The study has important limitations, however, meaning the hearing tests used in the study should not be seen as a diagnostic test for autism: Only boys aged 6 to 17 were included in the study. We don't know whether girls or younger children would have the same results. We can only see the average scores from the hearing tests. It's unclear whether all the children without autism had results in the "normal" range. If not, using hearing tests to diagnose autism could mistakenly diagnose children with normal development who have some hearing abnormalities. Similarly, we don't know if all the boy...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Pregnancy/child Source Type: news