An Innovative One-Minute Video Game Boasts an 80% Success Rate in Diagnosing Autism (10:31)

Diagnosing autism can be challenging, especially when children have overlapping traits with other conditions like ADHD.

Broadcast Retirement Network’s Jeffrey Snyder discusses innovative techniques to diagnose autism with Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Steven Mostofsky, MD and Bahar Tungenc of Nottingham Trent University.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

This morning on BRN, an innovative one-minute video game boasts an 80% success rate for diagnosing autism. Joining me now to discuss this and a lot more, Dr. Bahar Tuncgenc is with Nottingham Trent University and Dr. Stewart Mostofsky is with Kennedy Krieger Institute. Bahar, Stuart, great to see you.

Thanks for joining us in the program this morning. Pleasure to be here.

Bahar Tuncgenc, Nottingham Trent University

Thank you for having us.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Absolutely. And we’re going to talk in our second part, which will air tomorrow. We’re going to talk about your new innovative video game, Kami.

But I want to start with a very basic question. How difficult is it for practitioners to diagnose autism?

Stewart Mostofsky, MD, Kennedy Krieger Institute

Thanks for the question, Jeff. I think this is an important, crucial aspect of what motivated us in our research. It can be challenging.

It varies depending on the situation, the child’s presentation. But it certainly requires a considerable amount of effort, usually with multiple practitioners who are familiar and have deep experience and education in understanding autism. One of the more challenging aspects, in fact, that particularly motivated this research study is that not only is the challenge determining whether a child has autism or doesn’t have autism, the challenge often can be if the child doesn’t have autism, do they have a different developmental challenge that is contributing to why they present to the clinic?

And this is where it really gets tricky. Might they have a combination of difficulties that include autism, but also include some of these other developmental diagnoses? So for instance, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

So you can have a child who presents and they might have autism. They might not have autism, instead might have ADHD or a language disability or other challenges. And then what makes it even more complicated is they might have all of those things.

So in other words, they might be presenting with a combination of these conditions.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

And Bahar, I mean, this has got to be, this complexity in diagnosing probably is very difficult for parents of children that maybe are in this category, which can also lead to a longer road to diagnosis and also greater expense.

Bahar Tuncgenc, Nottingham Trent University

That’s exactly right. I think it depends on the country and the specific health system, how much exactly those things cost or how long that they might take. But for example, in the UK, it can take up to three years for a child to get diagnosis on the national health system.

And part of the reason for that is because of the complexities that Stuart just mentioned, because the pathway to care and referrals can be quite lengthy with lots of practitioners involved. And some of that is for good reason. So again, autism is a very heterogeneous condition, meaning there might be some autistic individuals who are maybe university graduates and, you know, winning world leading awards and so on, on the one hand.

And there might be other autistic individuals who really are unable to lead an independent life, on the other hand. And so and everything else in between as well. Famously, there’s a saying that if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person, not because they’re all very different from each other.

So, yeah, if you imagine those very different presentations coming to the clinic, it might sometimes be harder to distinguish what specifically this child’s needs are and what kinds of provisions need to be put in place and so on and so forth. So that might take a lengthier process. And that is for right reasons.

And I don’t really see CAMI replacing that necessarily. I think that sort of thorough clinical assessment is absolutely crucial. And I think we would all as the CAMI team, we would all agree that that is necessary and that would continue.

But if tools like CAMI can help accelerate that diagnostic process as a complementary method, then that would be that would be a great benefit. Because as you said, lack of diagnosis often means lack of help and support for the children and adults. That includes helping the children in their schools, helping them in their workplaces, in their home environment.

And so all of those things are linked to having a diagnosis. And so that’s why we put so much emphasis on being able to diagnose as effectively and in as much an evidence based manner as possible.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

And I mean, Stuart, it’s got to be frustrating for parents. And again, I’m not placing blame. I think it’s just it’s just challenging to keep up, have the science keep up with the the the issue.

Right. And I think being able to speed up the diagnosis, as Bahar was saying, now you get the opportunity to put in treatment plans or education plans. And the analogy that Bahar used that each individual is unique, they need their own personalized program.

Stewart Mostofsky, MD, Kennedy Krieger Institute

Absolutely. You know, in all my years of clinical experience, my mentor used to like to say that brains are like faces or she still likes to say that brains are like faces, everyone is different. And these presentations vary.

And in all my years of clinical experience, I mean, every individual, every family we work with, there are tailored recommendations, you know, that that we make specific to the child’s child’s challenges. And as Bahar mentioned, the heterogeneity, the range of presentation, a range of heterogeneous presentation across autism is is substantial. And requires that you really carefully consider what, you know, what is going to meet the needs of that individual child.

In some way, the diagnoses are crucial, but more crucial is figuring out what is going to improve outcomes for that child and and their family. And that’s one of the advantages to the approaches that we’re taking to and leveraging these technological advances to to improve identification is that it’s not only that it helps in, you know, the yes, no checkbox of is this autism, is this non-autism, is it a different, you know, developmental disability such as ADHD or developmental language disorder or not? Most crucially, what it does is it addresses the heterogeneity in ways it helps can help to address the heterogeneity in ways that help you figure out what might best improve outcomes.

So if a child really does have substantial challenges with imitating other people’s actions, then that really could inform therapy in for improving social skills, communication, you know, learning all types of of skills that one needs to function in life, what, you know, within the classroom or otherwise. And that and and tailoring that those approaches to the that individual child. So if somebody has difficulty with imitation, then you’re going to want to think about teaching them skills in a way that is different from how you might teach other children.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Well, I mean, it’s it’s it sounds like technology is going to play or does play a very important role in speeding up expediting the diagnosis process and therefore getting the child close to the treatment. We’re going to conclude this part of the conversation. But we come back tomorrow.

We’re going to talk about some technological innovations like Kami to see how it’s helping improve the diagnosis. Pahar, Stuart, thanks so much for joining us. We look forward to having you back on the program again tomorrow morning.

Thank you. Looking forward to it.

Bahar Tuncgenc, Nottingham Trent University

Great, thank you.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

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And as I said, we’re back again tomorrow for part two of our conversation about how a one minute video game can help diagnose autism. You’re not going to want to miss it.