University research themes: Healthy people, families and communities; Social change and equity
Early identification of autism is crucial for ensuring timely support and improved outcomes for Autistic children and their families. The Social Attention and Communication Surveillance (SACS) tool is the most effective autism screening tool in the world, reliably identifying autism in children as young as 11 months. Based on the SACS, the world’s first empirically-based mobile application for the early identification of autism was developed: ASDetect.
Impact
Three major Australian guidelines reference the SACS as a critical tool for early autism identification.
1. The Australian Government references the SACS’s ability to identify Autistic children in the Draft National Autism Strategy (pg 24): “The average age of diagnosis in children in Australia is about 3-4 years of age, with the most frequent age for diagnosis being 5.9 years. This is despite research showing that identification is possible in infancy (from 0 to 12-months of age), and diagnosis is possible as early as 18-24 months of age.”
2. Queensland Health references the SACS in their Chronic Conditions Manual: Prevention and Management of Chronic Conditions in Rural and Remote Australia. 3rd edition in section 2 – Developmental milestones. The Manual recommends the SACS-Revised (SACS-R) for identifying autism and advises that SACS-R results should be shared with any referred multidisciplinary team members for further assessment and support.
3. The Centre for Research Excellence in Newborn Medicine, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute published their Guideline for Growth, Health and Developmental Follow-up for Children Born Very Preterm. The guideline includes the SACS and ASDetect as predictive and prognostic tools under the developmental outcome domain of behaviour. The guidelines suggest that clinicians and services consider using SACS based on staff experience and expertise.
United Nations Sustainability Goals
