A new app can identify children with autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders in India, a study conducted in Delhi has found.
Autism — also referred to as autism spectrum disorder — constitutes a diverse group of conditions related to the development of the brain.
Autism affects about 1 in 100 children globally, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The results, published on Friday in the journal Autism, could open the door to help millions of children with autism spectrum conditions to get earlier screening quickly and inexpensively, leading to life-changing support.
Researchers from India, the UK, and the US tested the app, called START (Screening Tools for Autism Risk using Technology), with 131 two- to seven-year-olds living in low-resource neighborhoods of Delhi.
The team included researchers from the Indian Institute of Public Health Bengaluru, and Child Development Group, Sangath.
The tests were carried out at the children’s homes, by non-specialist healthcare workers, educated to high school level.
Through a series of simple games, questions, images, and activities on a tablet computer — such as popping bubbles and looking at patterns and images — the app measured the social preference, sensory interests, and motor skills of the children.
The app was 86 percent accurate in identifying children with any neurodevelopmental disorders, and 78 percent accurate in specifically identifying autism, the researchers said.
They said this performance is significantly higher than standard screening assessments for neurodevelopmental disorders used by non-specialists.
“Autism is diagnosed by highly trained professionals, but most autistic people live in parts of the world that harbour few or no such autism specialists, and with little autism awareness,” said Professor Bhismadev Chakrabarti, from the University of Reading, UK.
“So many autistic people go undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, or misunderstood, so we designed the START app to identify autism and related conditions anywhere,” said Chakrabarti, who led the study.
The START app puts a successful screening tool for autism and related conditions into the hands of the people already working in communities for children’s health, he added.
SOURCE: https://www.theweek.in/