Albert K. Einstein School of Medicine researchers at Yeshiva University in the Bronx, New York, say that measuring the speed of the brain’s response to sight and sound could provide a definitive method for classifying and diagnosing autistic children early. Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, N.Y., say that by being able to measure how fast the brain responds to sight and sound could provide a definitive way to categorize and early diagnose children with autism. Autism, also known as autism, is a class name for a disorder that occurs most often in children, especially boys, and has broad symptoms that include: language deficits, social impairments, narrowed interests, stereotyped behaviors, and intellectual disabilities. Autism is currently a difficult medical condition, and one of the main difficulties is that there is no “objective” way or indicator to identify the condition. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, autism affects one in 68 U.S. children, and symptoms can range from mild social communication difficulties to severe cognitive impairment. Dr. Sophie Molholm, the study’s leader, said in a news release, “One of the challenges in autism is that we don’t know how to group patients, which greatly limits our understanding and treatment of autism.” In one of the early studies, Dr. Molholm and colleagues found that children with autism perceive information such as hearing, touch and vision more slowly than their normal peers. The latest study, published online in this week’s issue of the journal AutismandDevelopmentalDisabilities, found that they believe perceptual processing is different among people with autism. The study included 43 children with autism, aged 6 to 17, who were given a simple task consisting of a simple sound and a visual image (red circle), or a sound with an image, and were asked to press a button as quickly as possible once they heard the sound, saw the image, and the sound with the image, while 70 scalp electrodes were attached to the head of these patients. By using the EEG information from these clicks, they knew how fast the children reacted to process the information. The researchers found a strong correlation between the speed of the children’s auditory signal responses and the severity of their symptoms: the more time it took, the more severe the child’s autism. This study is consistent with other findings that the microstructure of the auditory center in the brains of children with autism differs from that of normally developing children,” said Dr. Molholm. This study opens up the first step in developing biomarkers of autism severity, and using EEG in this way enables objectivity in assessing proof of the effectiveness of autism therapies.” Because less than 15 percent of people with autism are diagnosed before the age of four. EEGs may help diagnose autism earlier, which would help with early intervention treatments. Dr. Molholm said, “At the moment we haven’t diagnosed whether a child has autism by using some of the tools. But that will be the ultimate goal; to diagnose children and assess their strengths and weaknesses, their vulnerabilities. And to develop and provide the best therapy for each patient.”