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New Digital Screening Tool for Autism

Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine and Rutgers University have developed a new screening method for diagnosing and tracking autism in children. The technique provides an earlier, more objective, and more accurate diagnosis of autism using a digital set-up that works much like a video game system. The traditional assessment for diagnosing autism involves primarily subjective opinions of a person's social interaction, deficits in communication, and repetitive and restricted behaviors and interests. The new technique involves tracking a person's random movements in real time with a sophisticated computer program that produces 240 images a second and detects systematic signatures unique to each person.