20 Mar 2017

Blood test for autism

From Nine To Noon, 9:42 am on 20 March 2017

Researchers have developed a blood test for autism - and they say it's 96% accurate. Nine to Noon speaks to one of its authors, Dr Juergen Hahn and to the CEO of Autism New Zealand, Dane Dougan. The scientists used blood sample from 83 children with autism and 76 neurotypical children, all between 3 and 10 years old, and were able to use the test to correctly classify 97.6 percent of the children with autism and 96.1 percent of the neurotypical children. Currently a diagnosis of autism requires an assessment by a specially trained psychiatrist and it can take more than a year for parents to get a conclusive diagnosis.