Increasing Access to Early Diagnosis of Autism Using Eye-Tracking Tools

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University School of Medicine

Ami Klin, PhD, is the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Professor and chief of the Division of Autism and Developmental Disabilities at Emory University School of Medicine, and director of the Marcus Autism Center, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

This presentation will focus on studies validating social visual engagement, the moment-by-moment way children look at and learn about their social surroundings, as a quantitative biomarker for autism. Leveraging this science, we have now developed and validated an eye-tracking-based tool for the diagnosis and assessment of autism in 16-30-month-old toddlers. In two multisite, prospective, double-blind clinical trials involving >1,600 toddlers, including three independent cohorts and three replications, this tool showed accuracy of a quantitative diagnostic classifier and of three quantitative indices of severity: social disability proxying the total score of the ADOS-2, and verbal and nonverbal age equivalents proxying the verbal and nonverbal scales of the Mullen. This tool was cleared by the FDA in July 2023 and has been in clinical use in the United States since August 2023. Results of the trials appeared in simultaneous publications in JAMA and JAMA Network Open in September 2023.

• Participants will recognize the early symptoms of autism and the typical priorities for treatment and intervention
• Participants will learn about new advances capitalizing on eye-tracking research of early social development to generate cost-effective and community-viable solutions to increase access to early detection and diagnosis for young children with autism and related social-communication and language delays
• Participants will learn about EarliPoint, an objective, standardized, quantitative, and cost-effective tool for the early diagnosis and assessment of autism, the clinical validation data that led to its FDA clearance for broad use in the community, and its potential for making the diagnostics process more efficient and accessible while maintain high quality

• This presentation will include research related to medical device development.
• Drs. Klin and Jones are inventors and patent holders of medical device technologies licensed in 2020 to EarliTec Diagnostics.
• Drs. Klin and Jones’ external activity with EarliTec Diagnostics has been reviewed and approved by Emory University’s Conflict of Interest Review Office and by Emory University School of Medicine’s Dean’s Office.
• Drs. Jones and Klin’s research has been supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development , National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, the Marcus Foundation, the Joseph B. Whitehead Foundation, and the Autism Science Foundation.
• EarliTec is a company that develops technologies for early identification and treatment monitoring in autism and gives revenue to support treatment of children with autism. Drs. Klin and Jones are scientific consultants to and equity holders in EarliTec Diagnostics. Majority ownership is by Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, a nonprofit, with the commitment of returning investment into treatment of autism.

The Child Mind Institute Visiting Professor Lecture Series invites leaders in the field of child and adolescent mental health to talk about the latest research and treatment protocols. All events are open to the public. In partnership with Northwell Health, continuing medical education (CME) credits for psychiatrists and continuing education (CE) credits for psychologists are available to registered course participants.

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