The way children sniff different aromas could form the basis of a test for autism, suggest researchers in Israel.<\/p>\n
People spend longer inhaling the delightful aroma of a bouquet of roses than the foul stench of rotting fish.<\/p>\n
The results of tests on 36 children, in the journal Current Biology, showed that there appeared to be no such difference in children with autism.<\/p>\n
The National Autistic Society said smell could eventually become an additional tool for testing for autism.<\/p>\n
Behaviour, social interactions and communication skills are all affected by autism and the disorder affects one in every 160 children globally.<\/p>\n
It often takes until a child is at least two before it can be diagnosed.<\/p>\n
‘Somewhat surprising’<\/strong><\/p>\n The children in the trial at the Weizmann Institute of Science took part in a 10 minute experiment.<\/p>\n A red tube sent either pleasant or unpleasant odours up the nose while the green tube recorded changes in breathing patterns.<\/p>\n One of the researchers, PhD student Liron Rozenkrantz, said children normally altered the depth of their sniffing to the odours.<\/p>\n She told the BBC that “Children with autism didn’t show this modulation at all – they took the same sniff for the smell of shampoo as they did for rotten fish.<\/p>\n “This is striking and somewhat surprising.”<\/p>\n The team developed a computer programme that could detect autism in the group of children with 81% accuracy.<\/p>\n They also showed that the more severe the symptoms of autism the longer the children inhaled the unpleasant smells.<\/p>\n Early testing<\/strong><\/p>\n The earlier autism is diagnosed, the sooner children can get access to behavioural or educational interventions.<\/p>\n The team at the Weizmann Institute of Science said that one of the advantages of a sniffing test is that it does not rely on the child being able to communicate so it may be useful at a very early age.<\/p>\n Miss Rozenkrantz added: “But before we can use it as a diagnostic test, we need to know at what age children start to develop a sniff response in the general population.<\/p>\n “Are you born with it? Do you develop it later in life? No-one has looked at it yet.<\/p>\n “I think what we have an interesting place to start, but we do have a way to go.”<\/p>\n The researchers said smells have a role in social interaction and that this may explain the link with autism.<\/p>\n Dr Judith Brown, from the UK’s National Autistic Society, said: “Getting a diagnosis is a crucial step to unlocking vital support services which can make a huge difference to people on the autism spectrum and their families.<\/p>\n “We believe that the possibility of developing a single and universal diagnostic test for autism is unlikely.<\/p>\n “However, in future, if these initial findings are confirmed and fully understood, differences relating to processing smell may offer an additional tool in the necessarily multi-faceted process of diagnosing autism.”<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The way children sniff different aromas could form the basis of a test for autism, suggest researchers in Israel. People spend longer inhaling the delightful aroma of a bouquet of roses than the foul stench of rotting fish. The results of tests on 36 children, in the journal Current Biology, showed that there appeared to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":131086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-131085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-chinese"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/131086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}