BLIND RATINGS OF EARLY SYMPTOMS OF AUTISM BASED UPON FAMILY HOME MOVIES

Ratings of family home movies of 12 infants (0 to 2 years old) who wer e later diagnosed as autistic and 12 normal infants were performed by two diagnosis-blind psychiatrists with Infant Behavior Summarized Eval uation scale. The objective was to identify early symptoms of autism a nd their intensity and frequency before and after 1 year of age. Sever al pathological types of behavior related to socialization, communicat ion. motility, and attention were noted during the first year of infan t life and differentiated autistic and normal groups. These same diffe rentiating behaviors, observed again in the second year, were more int ense and associated with other pathological types of behavior, in part icular, gaze avoidance, hypoactivity, and absence of emotional express ions. Analysis of the evolution of behavioral pathology in autistic ch ildren as a group during the 2 first years of life confirms the persis tence of and the increase in some types of abnormality related to soci alization, communication, motility, and attention functions. The limit ations and values of this study concerning the early identification of autistic symptoms and functional impairments from home movies for dia gnosis and establishing individualized treatment program are discussed .