Early symptoms of autism in the first year of life

Identification of autism has become a “best practice”, since it helps families gather information about their child’s disorder and begin treatment. In fact, several intervention studies have demonstrated significant gains in social and cognitive functioning for young children with autism participating in intervention programmes. Differently high rates in social and non-social attention could reduce in regressive cases the emerging signs of autism and may mask the deviations. Although described by L. Kanner in 1943 as an inborn disorder of affective contact, information on autism in infants and very young children is limited. The retrospective analyses of home movies provide a potential research resource. They can be considered the only instrument available to study the course of onset and development of autism of life before diagnosis. All children in the autism group were recruited among those referred from multiple community sources to a suburban public academic hospital providing care to patients of all socioeconomic levels.