Rethinking autism diagnosis with AI and clinical expertise

Five years ago, this five-year-old with autism spoke for the first time and his pride is still inspiring

About a quarter of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are nonverbal, and while that number seems high, there's been sharp decline from a generation ago when the number was closer to half.This positive shift is due to an increase in studies on ASD which have resulted in more effective, therapeutic strategies. Children with ASD are often nonverbal, but many go onto acquire language skills. According to a 2013 study, up to 70% of nonverbal …

Repetitive behaviors and special interests are more indicative of an autism diagnosis than a lack of social skills

People with autism are typically diagnosed by clinical observation and assessment. To deconstruct the clinical decision process, which is often subjective and difficult to describe, researchers used a large language model (LLM) to synthesize the behaviors and observations that are most indicative of an autism diagnosis. Their results show that repetitive behaviors, special interests, and perception-based behaviors are most associated with an aut…

Rethinking autism diagnosis with AI and clinical expertise

In diagnosing autism – the developmental variant that affects around 80 million people worldwide – medical practitioners today put too much emphasis on a child's lack of sociability and not enough on their interests and how they naturally behave spontaneously with objects.

What is an atypical profile? Neuro-atypical profiles such as the High Intellectual Potentials (HPI), attention disorders with or without hyperactivity (TDA/H), dys profiles (dyslexia, dyspraxis, dyscalculation...), or people on the spectrum of autism (TSA) are characterized by distinct cognitive peculiarities. These individuals often have a unique perception of the world, tree thinking, marked emotional intensity and hypersensitivity that influe…

UST innovators develop AI-powered pen for early autism, ADHD detection

HANDWRITING analysis is now being utilized for the early detection of neurodevelopmental conditions such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) through an AI-powered smart pen developed by Thomasian researchers. “iSULAT,” or Intelligent Stroke Utilization, Learning, Assessment, and Testing, was designed to automate and standardize a handwriting assessment tool for a more efficient and objective diag…

The familiar and strange art of diagnosis

Andrew Papanikitas is Deputy Editor of the BJGP. Let me explain. Clifford Geertz’s concept of ‘making the familiar strange and the strange familiar’ emphasises the ethnographer’s role in understanding a culture by both stepping outside their own cultural assumptions and immersing themselves in the perspective of the people they study.1 Diagnosis is the way in which we recognise problematic strangeness. Diagnosis is the manner in which illness is…