A UK study has found that early diagnosis of autism is possible. The study that appeared in the journal Current Biology said that toddlers gaze is the way through which they could detect autism in children. A group of researchers from Birkbeck College, University of London, said that the study finding could prove to be a vital tool for the treatment of neurodegenerative treatment.

The study author, Kristelle Hudr, said that they conducted an experiment in which they examined babies aged six to 10 months. All the babies were the ones who were at high risk of developing autism as their older siblings were living with autism.

For the test, onlookers were asked to look at children for some time and then look away from them. It was a key way of assessing the symptoms of autism in children as children who have autism avoid eye contact. Electric sensors were attached to their brains to know their brain activities.

It was revealed that children who have autism have different brain activity since birth, and symptoms start developing with age. In other words, children who are likely to get autism later on in their lives have a different way of processing social information during childhood.

Hudr said that further research would be needed to know its future chances to be used as a way of detecting early diagnosis of children with autism. One of the researchers, Mark Johnson, said, “Our findings demonstrate for the first time that direct measures of brain functioning during the first year of life associate with a later diagnosis of autism - well before the emergence of behavioural symptoms”.

The study researchers said that often things are not treatable at a time if they are diagnosed quite late. In that case, their finding would be of good use.