Study: A quarter of premature babies show signs of autism
April 2nd, 2008Associated Press in USA Today:
A small study of toddlers finds that about one-quarter of babies born very prematurely had signs of autism on an early screening test.
The research is preliminary since formal autism testing wasn’t done. But the results are provocative, suggesting that tiny preemies may face greater risks of developing autism than previously thought.
That suggests autism may be an under-appreciated consequence of medical advances enabling the tiniest of premature babies to survive, said lead author Catherine Limperopoulos, a researcher at McGill University in Montreal and Children’s Hospital in Boston.
The study, published in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics, involved 91 children aged 18 monts to 2 years old, born on average 10 weeks early.


