Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a pervasive developmental disorder characterized by impairment in social interaction, communication, and by restricted and stereotyped interests. Detecting that a child has ASD is important. Early access to effective intervention programs can help the children learn many useful everyday skills and become more independent later in life. This in turn has positive effects on individual, family and societal levels.

At the Uppsala Babylab, we study how preschool children with autism spectrum disorders perceive social and non-social events. Increasingly, we focus on how children at risk for ASD develop during the very first years. However, two conditions make it difficult to study the very early development of the disorder. The first is that with current methods one can not diagnose ASD before approximately two years of age. The second is that only about 1% of the population have a diagnosis within the autism spectrum. Given the heritability of ASD, there is an increased risk for later being diagnosed with ASD in infants who have an older sibling with the disorder. Several international research groups have therefore chosen to follow younger siblings, often from just a few months to 3 years of age. Sibling Studies are among the most effective ways to understand the first signs of autism and thereby the nature of the disorder.

Early Autism Sweden (EASE) focuses on early autism research, such as studies of young siblings of children with ASD. EASE is a collaboration between the Uppsala Babylab and the Center of Neurodevelopmental Disorders at Karolinska Institutet, and has his own website: www.earlyautism.se.

Responsible for the project: Terje Falck-Ytter