StickmanHouse

Cartoons “could help spot autism”, BBC News has reported. According to the news service, research now suggests that doctors could pick up autism earlier by observing how a toddler responds to animations. Babies usually start paying attention to movement soon after birth and they pick up information from the cues they see, but children with autism often do not.

Researchers created five sets of “point-light animations” consisting of simple children’s games, such as ‘peek-a-boo’, using live actors and motion-capture technology. This motion-capture process attached points of light to parts of the actor’s body, which were then translated into ‘cartoons’. These cartoons represented figures as a number of moving dots, similar to stickmen. Audio recording was included in the motion-capture sessions.

Where did the story come from?

This research was conducted by Dr Ami Klin and colleagues from the Yale Child Study Center at Yale University School of Medicine in the US. The study was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health in the US, Autism Speaks and the Simons Foundation. The study was published as a letter in Nature, the peer-reviewed journal.

What were the results of the study?

The researchers show that two-year-olds with ASD did not turn towards the moving figures in time with audio cues. They are also more easily distracted by “non-social” action when watching these displays. These non-social actions were disregarded by the control children, i.e. those without ASD or other developmental delays.

Cartoons ‘could help spot autism’. BBC online, March 30 2009