Medical Conditions in the First Years of Life Associated with Future Diagnosis of ASD in Children.
Stacey E Alexeeff, Vincent Yau, Yinge Qian and 5 others
PMID 28434058WHAT IT FOUND
Before an ASD diagnosis, language delay was much more common in records of children later diagnosed, especially with global delay or central nervous system problems.
Motor delay without language delay was also more common.
Key findings
01Language delay recorded before the first ASD diagnosis was the most frequent developmental delay and had an adjusted odds ratio of 23.30 for later ASD.
02Motor delay without language delay was associated with later ASD, with an adjusted odds ratio of 10.56 for that cluster.
03Language delay combined with global delay had the highest relative risk in the all-age cluster analysis, with an adjusted odds ratio of 101.71.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
This is an observational case-control study, so it cannot show that any medical condition causes ASD or that treating a condition changes ASD risk. The study reported relative odds, not absolute risk, so the numbers cannot tell a clinician how likely one child is to develop ASD. Conditions depended on what was documented in medical records, and more health service use could lead to more recorded conditions and bias some comparisons. Not all ASD diagnoses were made by specialists, so some children could be misclassified. The clustering model was not tested for sensitivity, specificity, or predictive usefulness in a separate group. Some rare condition models did not converge, and the average age of ASD diagnosis was 3.99 years, so early records may not capture all risk.
Declared interests
Funding was named as an Autism Speaks Grant. The supplied text does not state author conflict-of-interest declarations.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these results as a diagnostic rule or proof that medical conditions cause ASD. The study compared groups and could not estimate absolute risk, and the clusters were not tested for screening accuracy.