New Quantitative Approach to Autism Diagnosis

Only a few years ago, leading autism expert David Amaral described the disorder as a lifelong disability. Today, he acknowledges that description is no longer true. "Research lately shows that a substantial proportion of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)-something on the order of 30% -show really substantial improvements in their autism symptoms," says Amaral, founding research director of the MIND Institute, an autism center at the University of California, Davis, CA. He adds that about 5% of the children, he and his colleagues, study at the MIND Institute actually lose their diagnosis over time. Part of the solution may be a new and quantitative strategy to diagnose autism. Amaral is working with a company to develop an assay for biomarkers associated with certain subtypes of ASD. Stemina Biomarker Discovery of Madison, WI, and its diagnostic division NeuroPointDX recently released results showing that it had identified an alteration in amino acid metabolism in nearly one in five children with autism, and had developed a tool to detect it.