Brief Report: Characteristics of preschool children with ASD vary by ascertainment.
Research studies find milder, more female ASD cases than clinics do.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers compared the preschoolers with ASD. Half came from infant-sibling studies. Half came from clinic referrals.
They checked autism severity, IQ, language, and gender mix.
What they found
Research-found kids had milder symptoms. They scored higher on IQ and language tests.
More girls showed up in the research group. Clinics saw mostly boys with more severe autism.
How this fits with other research
Laposa et al. (2017) found no gender gaps in the kids entering early intervention. This seems to clash with Root et al. (2017). The difference is where kids came from. Research studies attract milder cases and more girls. Clinics see whoever walks in the door.
Chuthapisith et al. (2007) first showed that infant-sibling studies pick different kids. This 2017 paper proves the same point for kids who actually have ASD.
Amaral et al. (2017) compared Down syndrome kids who screen positive for ASD versus diagnosed kids. They also found milder symptoms in the screen-positive group. Different ways of finding kids keep giving the same pattern.
Fombonne et al. (2022) looked at Black and White kids in clinics. They found similar autism symptoms despite different backgrounds. This matches the clinic side of R et al.'s findings.
Why it matters
Don't assume research studies match your caseload. If you read that early signs are subtle, remember those studies often track milder cases. Screen all kids the same way, regardless of gender. When reviewing research, always check how they found their participants.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Prospective studies of infant siblings of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) provide a unique opportunity to characterize ASD as it unfolds. A critical question that remains unanswered is whether and how these children with ASD resemble other children identified from the community, including those with no family history. The purpose of this study was to compare clinical characteristics of children with ASD identified by each method (n = 86 per group), drawn from two Canadian longitudinal research cohorts. Children ascertained from a prospective cohort were less severely affected and included a larger proportion of girls, compared to the clinically referred sample. These results may have important implications for conclusions drawn from studies of high-risk and clinically referred cohorts.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2017 · doi:10.1007/s10803-017-3062-z