Ellington

A study released by the UW Autism Center sets a new stage for early autism recognition, which can lead to higher IQs and increased social skills in autistic children.

While the UW Autism Center has worked on a variety of studies related to autism, the Early Start study is at the forefront due to its success in early intervention, with some of the toddlers in the study being as young as 18 months. The method, which was deemed the “Early Start Denver Model” (ESDM), was measured against a community-based autism program and, in the end, was found to improve children’s IQ scores by an average of 17.6 points, while the community intervention only improved by seven points.

“If you reach a child before the two-and-a-half year mark that’s not adapting to the environment or picking up skills that typical kids should, you’re sort of preventing the predicted delay that they’d have,” said Milani Smith, director of Clinical Services at the UW Autism Center Clinical Program.

The importance of this early intervention also directly relates to the science of the human brain.

“We know that children’s brains have more plasticity when they’re younger, so we expect to see more change if we start earlier,” said Jamie Winter, a case supervisor for the study.

While Smith’s job was to oversee the day-to-day management of the project, former UW professor of psychology Geraldine Dawson, now the chief science officer of “Autism Speaks,” was the leader and co-author of the study. The other co-author, developmental psychologist at UC Davis, Sally Rogers, was the creator of the ESDM, which was the driving force of the study.

For two years, therapists worked with children for four hours every day in their own homes, teaching the children necessary developmental skills for their age level with typical toddler toys and books. While these activities helped to teach the children things like motor skills, they also worked to build a relationship between the child and therapist.

“I think that working together with parents is really rewarding to help empower them to provide intervention to their own child,” Winter said.

Because of its success in behavioral and cognitive improvement, the study is being replicated at the UW as well as at UC Davis and the University of Michigan. Future studies will also piggyback off of the outcomes of the original project. While the general results of the study concluded that those in the ESDM group gained more IQ points, there were also those in the community-based study that did quite well. This is one component that researchers would like to investigate in greater depth.

“This was the major outcome study, so the big question is, ‘Did this work well compared to community treatment?’” Smith said. “In follow-up studies, we want to find predictors of outcome by looking at brain and behavioral markers.”

Winter is also an integral component of the new study, which starts with children as young as 12 months.

“We’re just better able to recognize early signs and also able to provide developmentally appropriate intervention for children at younger and younger ages,” Winter said.

Reach contributing writing Kristen Steenbeeke at development@dailyuw.com.