MOVEMENT ANALYSIS IN INFANCY MAY BE USEFUL FOR EARLY DIAGNOSIS OF AUTISM

All of the 17 autistic children studied in the present paper showed di sturbances of movement that with our methods could be detected clearly at the age of 4-6 months, and sometimes even at birth. We used the Es hkol-Wachman Movement Analysis System in combination with still-frame videodisc analysis to study videos obtained from parents of children w ho had been diagnosed as autistic by conventional methods, usually aro und 3 years old. The videos showed their behaviors when they were infa nts, long before they had been diagnosed as autistic. The movement dis orders varied from child to child. Disturbances were revealed in the s hape of the mouth and in some or all of the milestones of development including, lying, righting, sitting, crawling, and walking. Our findin gs support the view that movement disturbances play an intrinsic part in the phenomenon of autism, that they are present at birth, and that they can be used to diagnose the presence of autism in the first few m onths of life. They indicate the need for the development of methods o f therapy to be applied from the first few months of life in autism.