TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — New research from the Florida State University College of Medicine found that infants with autism spectrum disorder demonstrate social-communication differences with their peers by nine months.
 
The research, which was published in Child Development, showed three unique patterns of social-communication development in infants with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and points to a crucial window for intervention.
 
“If a parent or caregiver is aware of differences in social communication, they can learn how to use intervention strategies that create opportunities for social interaction and communication development early on,” said study co-author Amy Wetherby, the Laurel Schendel Professor of Communication Disorders at Florida State University and director of the Autism Institute in the College of Medicine. “This can provide parents or caregivers with support to enrich the language environment that may help shift developmental trajectories for infants with ASD.”
 
Researchers measured the social skills, speech skills and symbolic communication skills of infants at nine months and at 12 months. When the infants were 24 months old, researchers tested them for ASD.
 
The study showed that infants who would later be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder exhibited fewer social and early speech skills at nine months than their typically developing peers. When researchers measured again three months later, they found several patterns:
 
•    Infants with ASD scored consistently lower for things such as communicating with eye gaze, facial expression and sounds.
 
•    The symbolic use of objects — for example, being creative with toys — was similar in both groups at nine months. But by 12 months, the ASD infants showed a delay in development.
 
•    Infants with ASD used gestures and communicated less frequently overall compared to their peers at nine months of age. By 12 months, the gap between the two groups had increased.
 
By identifying specific skills that are different in infants with ASD, the researchers hope to provide effective targets for intervention.
 
“When infants are starting to learn and use symbolic communication, that’s when intervention that takes advantage of their existing communication skills can help them develop on trajectories that are more like those of their peers,” Wetherby said. “Giving parents the tools to intervene effectively can make a big difference.” 
 
Researchers from the University of South Carolina, Emory University School of Medicine, Marcus Autism Center, Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh were co-authors on this study.
 
This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Deafness and Communication Disorders, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of South Carolina. Additional support was provided by the Marcus Foundation, the Joseph B. Whitehead Foundation and the Georgia Research Alliance.

Contact Bill Wellock at wwellock@fsu.edu 

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Imagine being able to pinpoint the exact moment in utero when brain development changes and leads to genetic disorders such as autism and cerebral palsy. That knowledge could open the door to intervention strategies, potentially lessening or preventing the dysfunction — and the subsequent genetic disorder.
 
Florida State University College of Medicine Associate Professor Yuan Wang has been awarded a $2 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to identify the origin of the synaptic dysfunction responsible for a variety of neurodevelopmental conditions.
 
“We have to know what’s going on in this critical period of the development of these diseases,” Wang said. “The significance of our project is to identify the development of the neurodevelopmental disorder, instead of starting after there have been a series of problems and behavior changes.”
 
Neurodevelopmental disorders affect millions of children in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 6.2 million children ages 2-17 have been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism affects an estimated 1 in 54 children.
 
Scientists have identified Fragile X syndrome (FXS) as a leading genetic disorder responsible for these neurodevelopmental losses. In addition to autism, ADHD, and cerebral palsy, FXS causes learning and intellectual disabilities and hearing and vision impairment. It happens when the brain circuitry loses the function of the RNA-binding Fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP), which is critical to brain development. There is no cure for FXS.
 
Wang, a researcher in the Department of Biomedical Sciences since 2015, has focused her research on brain development and regulation, with a particular interest in the roles of FMRP in developing auditory neurons.
 
“My research all started with how the brain works — how the brain circuit is organized in order to have a specific function,” Wang said. “I want to go to another level because of the prevalence of autism and ADHD. This NIH award is a natural continuation of my previous research.”
 
Her project centers on the signals responsible for normal and abnormal development of the brain. To do this, her team records experimental observations of the endbulb synapses in chickens, which are specialized terminals between the ear and the brain and the first of the synapses in the brain receiving the signal from the ear. Studying these synapses is a well-established model system widely used to study the anatomy and physiology of auditory processing at discrete periods of development
 
“The chicken is actually a classical animal model for studying brain development,” Wang said. “We can actually follow the individual cells; how they grow, how they form connectivity with other cells, right in front of our eyes.”
 
By combining advanced genetic approaches with time-lapse structural and functional imaging in a living organism — the chicken — Wang’s research will seek to “identify an origin of synaptic dysfunction and its responsible molecular signals.”
 
The Wang Lab will employ four or five researchers for the project, in addition to post-doctoral researchers and graduate students. 
 
The NIH award also includes funding for consortium activity with Northeast Ohio Medical University, which will be responsible for recording cell activity.
 
Research reporting in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health under award number R01MH126176. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.