International Meeting for Autism Research (London, May 15-17, 2008): Identification of infants with autism at their first birthday through retrospective use of FYI

Identification of infants with autism at their first birthday through retrospective use of FYI

Friday, May 16, 2008
Champagne Terrace/Bordeaux (Novotel London West)
9:30 AM
F. Muratori , Child Neurology and Psychiatry, Scientific Institute "Stella Maris", Pisa, Italy
F. Apicella , Child Neurology and Psychiatry, Scientific Institute "Stella Maris", Pisa, Italy
F. Fulceri , Child Neurology and Psychiatry, Scientific Institute "Stella Maris", Pisa, Italy
A. Narzisi , Child Neurology and Psychiatry, Scientific Institute "Stella Maris", Pisa, Italy
R. Tancredi , Child Neurology and Psychiatry, Scientific Institute "Stella Maris", Pisa, Italy
Background:

Recent research (Watson et al., 2007) indicate the First Year Inventory (Reznick, Baranek et al., 2006) as a tool to identify one-year-olds at risk for autism and to describe children diagnosed with autism at their first birthday.

Objectives:

To examine the construct validity of the FYI-Retrospective form in a population of Italian preschoolers with autism.

Methods:

FYI was administered to parents of 50 preschoolers with ASD referred to the IRCCS Stella Maris for a comprehensive evaluation. Children’s diagnoses were confirmed with Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-G). Standard scores from MacArthur Communication Development Inventory and Leiter International Performance Scale-Revised (Leiter-R) were used to investigate language and cognitive levels. Parents (mother when possible) also completed the Early Development Questionnaire (EDQ; Ozonoff, 2005) to evaluate the presence of regression.

Results:

Preliminary analyses show: 1) higher risk scores in Social-communication domain (particularly in Social orienting and receptive communication; Imitation and Expressive communication) compared to the scores in Sensory-regulatory domain; 2) children with reported regression after 12 months of age have lower scores at the FYI; 3) a proportion of children obtained total risk scores under threshold of the cutoff; 4) some correlation of the FYI with cognitive and language impairments were found.

Conclusions:

FYI is as a useful tool to investigate early autism in its different form of onset and to better understand regressive form of autism.