Article Review (Summary)
“What symptoms predict the diagnosis of autism or PDD-NOS in infants and toddlers with developmental delays using the Baby and Infant Screen for autism Traits?” is a research article by Johnny L. Matson, Jill C. Fodstad & Timothy Dempsey which presents the characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) among children and the benefits of identifying the disorder at early stages of a child’s growth (Matson, et al, 2009).
The article identifies autism as a type of disorder that affects the functional connectivity of core brain areas, which are specifically involved in controlling body functions such as verbal and non-verbal communication, and flexibility, and emotional control responses such as anxiety, fear, planning, and social interactions. This disorder makes it extremely difficult for the affected person to have a normal emotional reaction, think in a logical manner, behave normally, or tell the existing difference between the unreal and real situation (Matson, et al, 2009).
The article identifies early identification of ASD to be a top priority for researchers, where such a practice helps prevent disastrous signs and symptoms in the future by decreasing maladaptive behaviors and in turn increasing an individual’s abilities and skills. Regardless of the need to establish an early diagnosis, the article asserts that up to now little is known about the signs and symptoms that best envisage autism among children and this accounts for the reason why at times such diagnosis is delayed up to 4- 5 years.
According to the authors, this disorder has a lot of impacts and implications on the life of an individual. The individual suffering from the disorder experiences disorganized speech and behavior. Such people are also physically rigid and disoriented with whatever is happening around them. Delusions also become common and sometimes they experience the paranoia of imagining or thinking that other people are plotting something negative against them when in real sense they are not (Matson, et al, 2009).
Article Critique (Critical Review)
The journal article, “What symptoms predict the diagnosis of autism or PDD-NOS in infants and toddlers with developmental delays using the Baby and Infant Screen for autism Traits” by Johnny L. Matson, Jill C. Fodstad, & Timothy Dempsey was first published online on 7th May 2009 by the Journal of Developmental Neurorehabilitation, on volume 12, No. 6, on pages 381–388.
The title of the article gives a reasonable representation of the topic since most concepts concentrate on the identification of signs and symptoms that would be necessary for identifying Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) among children. When identifying the thesis, the title provides straightforward critical elements of the article study. As the introduction shows, the aim of the article was purposely to establish assessment protocols for early identification of ASD among children by identifying signs and symptoms that are the best forecaster of autism and PDD-NOS among young children (Matson, et al, 2009).
In the main body of this article, the authors of the article categorically employed a variety of opinions to support the most important points. The author looked at the effects of ASD on certain personality traits, and how each trait affected individual wellbeing.
The major strength of this study is that it had a large sample size of 971 infants and that the results were conclusive since the study was carried out in two phases based on ASD traits screener, where in the first study the Baby and Infant Screen for autism Traits (BISCUIT) was used to screen all test participants, while the second study only evaluated participants with autism or PDD-NOS. Another notable strength of this study is that the sampling of the study participants cut across both genders, and it was very adequate.
Despite numerous strengths, this study had several limitations, and the most notable ones includes the size of participants where the findings where not spread or generalized. The large number of statistical tests also increased risks of type 1 errors. Another critical limitation of this study is that it failed to analyze whether BISCUIT-Part 1 items best classified infants with Autism compared to those with PDD-NOS (Matson, et al, 2009).
Reference
Matson, L., Fodstad, J. & Dempsey, T. (2009). What symptoms predict the diagnosis of autism or PDD-NOS in infants and toddlers with developmental delays using the Baby and Infant Screen for autism Traits. Developmental Neurorehabilitation, 12(6): 381–388.
