New study detects signs of autism in infants by their declin

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http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013 ... ye-contact

Signs pointing to an autism diagnosis may be detectable in the first two to six months of life, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature.

While autism and related disorders are usually diagnosed in toddlers between the ages of three and five years, a new study from Emory University in Atlanta found that infants as young as two months begin to exhibit declining eye contact and facial recognition by following eye-movement patterns associated with a later diagnosis of autism.

Interesting, insofar as it goes, but given that the study population was composed of infants with an elevated likelihood of presenting ASD's, we're a long way from being able to draw any diagnostic inference from infant eye contact (or lack thereof).

^I agree. Just because an infant looks around him/herself, it doesn't necessarily mean they are going to develop an ASD.

There's a scene very early on in the Robin Williams film Jack where his character, as an infant, scans the surroundings in quick POV shots that remind me very much of Francis Ford Coppola's earlier Apocalypse Now or Hitchcock's Vertigo. Looking at the world from the perspective of an infant in its mother's arms, we experience a smorgasbord of emotions, like wonder, bewilderment, and so on. I may sound like I'm going off-topic, but there's a method to my madness.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that infants take stuff in through sight.

I agree with both of you- too much is being lumped together at the moment to be that broad of a test.