HK scientist develops retinal scan technology to identify early childhood autism – Latest News

Retinal eye scanning may also help to enhance early detection and therapy outcomes for kids, mentioned Benny Zee, a professor on the Chinese language College of Hong Kong.

“The significance of beginning early intervention is that they’re nonetheless rising, they’re nonetheless creating. So there’s a greater probability of success,” Zee mentioned.

His technique makes use of a high-resolution digital camera with new laptop software program which analyses a mixture of things together with fibre layers and blood vessels within the eye.

The technology can be utilized to determine kids prone to autism and get them into therapy programmes sooner, mentioned Zee.

Seventy kids had been examined utilizing the know-how, 46 with autism and a management group of 24. The know-how was in a position to determine the kids with autism 95.7 % of the time. The typical age examined was 13, with the youngest being six.

Zee’s findings have been revealed in EClinicalMedicine, a peer-reviewed medical journal.

Autism specialists welcomed his findings however mentioned there remained an enormous stigma, with dad and mom usually reluctant to imagine their kids have autism even when there are clear indicators.

“Many instances, dad and mom will initially be in denial,” mentioned Dr Caleb Knight, who runs a non-public autism remedy centre.

“Should you had a medical take a look at or organic marker like this, it’d facilitate dad and mom not going into denial for longer intervals and due to this fact the kid would get therapy extra rapidly.”

Youngsters with autism have to attend round 80 weeks to see a specialist within the public medical sector, in line with an emailed assertion from Hong Kong’s authorities.

Zee advised Reuters that his analysis is meant to be a supplemental instrument to knowledgeable evaluation by licensed healthcare professionals.