Validation of a new early screening test for ASD in Chinese toddlers.

PI: Xue-Jun Kong, MD

The current average age for ASD diagnosis is about 2-7 years old. However, ASD individuals already show signs as early as infancy.  The development of easily implementable early detection tools and screening tests has drawn great attention in recent years. RITA-T is a new protocol first published in 2015 and has only been used on limited subjects, with no further improvement since then. Our team aims to validate this method in additional populations, particularly in Chinese children, and investigate whether the protocol could be improved. We will use RITA-T itself, in its original form and after some modifications, to better characterize the psychological properties of ASD individuals.  After the RITA-T evaluation, we will go through the standard DSM-5 evaluation to assess the accuracy of this new protocol.  We will use the gold standard DSM-5 and ADOS-2, along with eye tracking studies using different paradigms to guide the further development of RITA-T and other screening tools in order to achieve an optimal protocol with the best sensitivity and the greatest simplicity. Considering the difficulty of optimizing both, a reasonable balance would be used to make a decision. Based on previous research, we expect to attain -70% sensitivity. This project is currently close and active data analysis.

Posters:

poster presented in INSAR 2019, Canada