Research - under 3 years

[MSc student11]

Hi all,

I am looking for participants for research I am doing for an MSc. I am looking for parents of children with a diagnosis of autism/ASD/Asperger's syndrome or PDD-NOS and also parents of children with other diagnoses or no diagnosis. The children must be between 18 months and 37 months of age. If you would like any more information, please get in touch by pm. The research is confidential and I hope to present the results at conferences and get them published. I only have a week left to find participants so I would really appreciate your help,

Tracey

http://obsurvey.com/S2.aspx?id=81FB61C1-8E9E-4285-AFF8-DD10F9045DD0

[heatherdeg]

With all due respect, my son was followed from 10mo-36mo by Kennedy Krieger (specifically, Dr. Rebecca Landa) who was working on research for early identification of autism spectrum disorders.  My understanding was that these dx's were not supposed to be given before the age of 3yo because the symptoms could be indicative of a number of things that were not in the spectrum.  My own son had a dx of "megaencephalopathy" and "red flags of the autism spectrum" but not an actual dx.

I realize doctors are doing it.  There are doctors that also run allergy tests on children under 2yo despite the fact that they are unreliable at best (for reasons fully explained to me be an immunologist) and children under 6 or 7yo with ADHD (even though the DSM-IV has an age minimum set in it's dx criteria).  Even so, I have yet to run into even a mainstream (and not keeping up with things) doctor that would even consider an Asperger's diagnosis before 5yo (and again, my understanding is that the guideline is 8yo so they are fully past the immunological and maturity change that comes at age 7yo).  I'm just wondering if you would find truly accurately diagnosed participants for your study if they are being diagnosed this young...?

[MSc student11]

Thanks for your interest in the study, at the moment the number of children recieving a diagnosis at this age is still small, and alot of practitioners will not diagnose before 3 years, as you say. However, research indicates that diagnoses given as young as 18 months (when given by an experienced clinician, I can pass on the references if you would like) remain stable at 3 years of age. The test I am using was developed by Matson and associates and has been tested and normed on a large population of children at this age who had an independently verified diagnosis of ASD. It's still a relatively new area of research, but I think it's an important one