Use of structured home video diaries to track the development of infants at risk for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)

Background: Studies of development of infants later diagnosed with ASD have relied on data from personal home videos, which typically lack standardized procedures, or laboratory-based visits, which families can find time-intensive.  As an alternative, standardized home video diaries may allow for dense data collection during critical early stages of development when symptoms emerge or developmental trajectories change significantly, as in regression.

Objectives: To examine the use of semi-structured home video diaries as a novel approach for studying the development of infants at risk for ASD.

Methods: In an ongoing study, parents (with infants at risk for ASD, specific language impairment (SLI), or typical controls) were supplied with video equipment and trained on collecting semi-structured data in the home bi-weekly, beginning when their infant was 6 months old.  Parents (currently n=30) also completed web-based weekly diaries and brought their infant to the laboratory for standardized assessments at 6, 9, 12 and 18 months. 

Results: Families have completed .98 diaries per month on average (SD=.88; range=0-4.3).  ASD-risk families (n=17) submitted .83 per month (SD=.61), SLI-risk families (n=3) submitted .93 per month (SD=.50), and control families (n=9) submitted 1.28 per month (SD=1.34).  Preliminary analysis of videos suggest that infants who later exhibit ASD risk signs (on the AOSI and/or ADOS) are more likely to be unresponsive to name and fail to babble before 12 months. Ongoing work will focus on the predictive diagnostic value of video diaries and the relation between behaviors in the diaries and in laboratory-based assessments.

Conclusions: Our findings indicate that families are capable of completing one semi-structured video per month.  Thus, video diaries provide a realizable, cost-effective method of collecting data more frequently than lab-based testing.  Home-based diaries are accessible to families for whom laboratory participation is impossible and may help identify very early risk signs for ASD.