Autism screening may do more harm than good

Hyper-awareness of autism leads many parents to screen their toddlers as soon as possible for behaviors associated with the disorder. In fact, both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC now encourage routine screening. Yet a new report in the journal Pediatrics disputes this rush to screen. Dr. Jan Willem Gorter and colleagues at McMaster University in Canada reviewed the medical literature and found that the number of misdiagnoses resulting from autism screening are counter-productive. Whether false-positive or false-negative, Dr. Gorter notes, a misdiagnosis can be a tremendous burden on a family. (And one recent test resulted in false-positives one quarter of the time.) Furthermore, while autism spectrum disorders affect nearly 1 percent of children in the U.S., there is no cure and the behavioral interventions that parents often turn to are of questionable benefit and, frequently, costly.

We see this all the time, in all sorts of situations, notes ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. People want tests and screening, thinking that the more information they have, the better. Unfortunately, it s just not so. False-positives aren t helpful, and what can one do for a disorder that has no treatment? He agrees with the conclusions of the new report on autism screening, observing that these attempts at early diagnosis often do more harm than good.