FRIDAY, May 21 (HealthDay News) — a program to help autistic children communicate more effectively helps parents and kids understand each other but doesn’t improve symptoms, a new study finds.

The program was designed to try to help autistic children develop better communication and social skills by teaching parents how to communicate with them with an eye toward their impairments.

Jonathan Green, of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, and colleagues recruited families of 152 children — aged between 2 to nearly 5 — to take part in the study. Seventy-five of the children and their families took part in the program, attending several meetings over a year. The others received ordinary treatment.

The researchers found that while the program didn’t reduce autism symptoms, it did help improve interaction between parents and their children.

The study was published online May 21 in The Lancet and was scheduled to be presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research, which concludes Saturday in Philadelphia.

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ScienceDaily (Dec. 2, 2010) — Researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital and the University of Utah have developed the best biologically based test for autism to date. the test was able to detect the disorder in individuals with high-functioning autism with 94 percent accuracy.

The study will be published online the week of November 29th in Autism Research.

The test, which uses MRI to measure deviations in brain circuitry, could someday replace the subjective test now used to identify those with the disorder. It could also lead to a better understanding of autism and to better management and treatments of affected individuals.

"this is not yet ready for prime time use in the clinic yet, but the findings are the most promising thus far," said lead author Nicholas Lange, ScD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Neurostatistics Laboratory at McLean. "indeed, we have new ways to discover more about the biological basis of autism and how to improve the lives of individuals with the disorder," said senior author Janet Lainhart, MD, Principal Investigator of the research at the University of Utah.

The Harvard-McLean and University of Utah researchers used the test on two groups of subjects. one group consisted of individuals who had previously been diagnosed with high-functioning autism using the standard subjective scoring system. That system is based on assessing patients and questioning their parents about their functionality in a variety of areas including language, social functioning, and behavior. the second group studied was a control group consisting of normally developing individuals.

The subjects were put in an MRI scanner that was programmed to be sensitive to water diffusion along the axons of the brain to measure microscopic features of the brain’s circuitry. the Lange-Lainhart test employs Diffusion Tensor Imaging.

"It provides pictures and measurements of the microscopic fiber structures of the brain that enable language, social and emotional functioning, which can reveal deviations that are not found in those without autism," Lange said.

A repeat study using two different sets of subjects showed the same high level of performance.

"the differences picked up on the study correlate with clinical symptoms that are part of the features of autism," Lainhart said. "There is less directional flow to and from brain regions where there should be more information exchange," said Lange.

The collaborative research group will further study and develop the test with more findings due out in a year or two. Future studies will look at patients with high-severity autism, younger children, and patients with brain disorders such as developmental language disorders, ADHD and OCD, who do not have autism.

If the test demonstrates further success, it could someday replace the current subjective system of diagnosing autism, which is not biologically based.

It could also someday lead to pinpointing how autism develops. "we can gain a better understanding of how this disorder arises and changes over the lifetime of an individual, and derive more effective treatments," said Lainhart.

Co-authors included: Molly DuBray, Alyson Froehlich, Brad Wright, P. Thomas Fletcher, all of the University of Utah, Erin Bigler of Brigham Young University, Nagesh Adluru, Alexander Alexander, and Jee Eun Lee of the University of Wisconsin, and Michael Froimowitz and Caitlin Ravichandran at Harvard and McLean.

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the above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by McLean Hospital.

Journal Reference:

1. Nicholas Lange, Molly B. DuBray, Jee Eun Lee, Michael P. Froimowitz, Alyson Froehlich, Nagesh Adluru, Brad Wright, Caitlin Ravichandran, P. Thomas Fletcher, Erin D. Bigler, Andrew L. Alexander and Janet E. Lainhart. Atypical diffusion tensor hemispheric asymmetry in autism. Autism Research, 2 Dec 2010 DOI: 10.1002/aur.162

Note: if no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: this article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Scans that reveal flaws in the brain’s circuitry may one day be used to diagnose autism, researchers from McLean Hospital say in a report published last week.

Nicholas Lange and colleagues write in the journal Autism Research that their neuroimaging studies were able to distinguish people with autism from control subjects 94 percent of the time using an MRI that took about 10 minutes. The scans focused on three parts of the brain that are known to be impaired in autism: areas involving language, social and emotional function. currently autism is diagnosed after hours of interviews with parents and observation of a child, usually 2 to 3 years old, who does not appear to be developing normally.

“we all want to know what we can and cannot change about the disorder and how to improve the lives of people with autism,’’ Lange said in an interview. “this is a major step toward that goal and more research needs to be done before it is ready for clinical use.’’

For the study, the researchers examined the brains of 30 people from 7 to 28 years old with high-functioning autism and compared them to the brains of 30 similar people with normal development. The MRIs showed differences between the two groups in how tiny fibers between nerve cells were organized.

Out of the 30 people with autism, 28 were correctly identified based on scans that suggested information could not flow as easily through faulty neural connections. Out of the 30 controls without autism, three were incorrectly labeled.

In an interview, Lange made an analogy to the electrical wiring between a lamp and a wall socket. If the insulation on the wire is faulty, electricity cannot flow properly. In the same way, if the fibers between nerve cells in the brain are not well insulated with myelin, or if the fibers are disorganized, signals cannot travel as well.

They did not see differences between the brains of older and younger people with autism, hinting that problems in brain development may occur before age 7. Lange said further research will look at younger people and at people with more severe forms of the disorder.

An autism specialist not involved in the study also said more research is needed before the technique can be considered for use as a diagnostic tool. Dr. Stewart H. Mostofsky, director of the Laboratory for Neurocognitive and Imaging Research and medical director of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, noted that the biggest differences in the brain scans showed up in areas central to language.

“The critical issue is not distinguishing children with autism from typically developing children but distinguishing children with autism from children with developmental language disorders or language impairment,’’ he said. “it is certainly possible that the primary [difference] is not necessarily autism presenting but rather the language impairments that are associated with autism.’’ ELIZABETH COONEY