At present autism can be diagnosed with a high degree of reliability between the ages of 18 months and 2 years. Yet, the first symptoms are already present long before the diagnosis is made. This has led to a number of retrospective and prospective studies being conducted with the aim of detecting manifestations that allow a diagnosis to be reached as early as possible. The results of these studies have enabled researchers to detect symptoms that appear between the ages of 6 and 12 months. Although it has been observed that these symptoms are of limited diagnostic interest, they do provide invaluable information for the understanding of autism within the framework of neurodevelopmental disorders because they highlight a pattern of development that is initially common to several different disorders, but which progressively goes on to constitute a specific phenotype.
Title: El autismo en el primer año.
Actualmente es posible diagnosticar el autismo con un alto grado de fiabilidad entre los 18 meses y los 2 años. Sin embargo, los primeros sintomas ya estan presentes mucho antes del diagnostico. Ello ha dado pie a que se hayan llevado a cabo multiples estudios, retrospectivos y prospectivos, orientados a detectar manifestaciones que faciliten un diagnostico lo mas precozmente posible. A partir de estas investigaciones se han podido detectar sintomas cuya aparicion se situa entre los 6 y 12 meses. Aunque se ha visto que estos sintomas tienen un interes diagnostico limitado, aportan informacion muy valiosa para la comprension del autismo en el marco de los trastornos del neurodesarrollo, en el sentido de destacar un patron evolutivo que en su inicio es comun a diversos trastornos, pero que progresivamente va configurando un fenotipo especifico.