(UK) U of Sussex: Diagnosing ASD in newborns by studying body movement

July 12, 2024, India WION: Babies' movements tracked with 'intelligent onesies' could help diagnose autism, ADHD

By seeing how newborns move around, researchers may soon be able to use "intelligent onesies" to diagnose autism, ADHD, and other neurodivergent disorders in infants.

Researchers at the University of Sussex in England are monitoring the movements of newborns from birth to 18 months of age using clothes fitted with motion sensors, as well as video recordings, as part of an ongoing study.

To discover critical motor behaviours that predict symptoms of neurodivergent diseases, researchers want to compare certain motions, such as wriggling, sitting, and crawling, with newborns' social and communicative abilities during their first eighteen months of development.

Gillian Forrester, lead author and professor of comparative cognition at the University of Sussex, told Newsweek that the study aims to identify early movement patterns linked to a future autism diagnosis.

"This could lead to much earlier screening compared with our current diagnostic practices. Earlier screening, in turn, can lead to earlier and novel interventions," she said.

"I'm extremely excited about this new research because it gives us a better understanding of how moving our bodies in the first days of life informs our subsequent social and communication development," she added.

The Baby Grow project, as the name implies, tries to demonstrate how repetitive and less diverse movements in babies are connected with complications such as autism and ADHD, whereas more complex and varied motions are associated with normal cognitive development.

"It is commonly known that from the first days of life, the way we move helps prepare our brains and bodies to navigate a complex physical and social world. However, the direct links between a baby's early movements and their social abilities later in life are not well understood," Forrester said in a statement.

"By collecting data on babies' earliest movements, we hope to provide clinicians, GPs and parents with the tools they need to identify early markers of neurodivergence in infants. Our hope is that this research will lead to earlier screening, diagnosis and interventions during infancy to support children and their families," Forrester added.

The findings will be presented at this year's Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, along with an interactive "Baby Boogie" game. 

Attendees can compare their motor abilities to those of a baby, highlighting the challenge of mimicking the complex movements linked to healthy cognitive development.

"The way we solve problems with our hands has a motion structure similar to how we put words together to create meaningful speech. But we often investigate ourselves in isolation from the rest of the animal kingdom," Forrester said.

"Our research explores how we became (and become) upright, walking, talking, tool-using great apes that we are today—through evolution and development, creating a bridge between us and the natural world," Forrester added.