COLUMBIA -- Autism is a neurological disorder, which affects 1 in 110 children and 1 in 70 boys.
Right now, there's no cure for it.
But local researchers at the University of Missouri are trying to change that.
They've found distinct differences in the facial characteristics of children with autism compared to those of children without.
"Their eyes are wider so they have these big, beautiful eyes and their mouths are broader, whereas the middle region of the face is a little bit shorter as compared to the boys without autism,” study author Kristina Aldridge said. “Those correlate with regions of the face that develop as separate cell populations early in fetal and embryological development."
Aldridge studied 3-D pictures of the heads of 8 to 12-year-old boys.
64 of them had autism, 41 did not.
She took measurements from the pictures and then compared the two groups.
“We can look at the genes that overlap with brain development and see if there are things that are going differently for these kids than they are for kids without autism and maybe even look at a window in time for development," Aldridge said.
Through the study, researchers also found subgroups of kids within the autism group that had similar facial features.
Aldridge said it could help find specific causes for each variation of the disorder.
"Their faces are slightly different from the other kids and their behavioral traits are also slightly different from the other kids,” Aldridge said. “So we can look at the potential multiple causes for autism and if we can look at these groupings of kids and try to look for multiple causes rather than a single cause potentially, it might help us."
There's no clear answer about whether autism is caused by genetics or by environmental influences.
It's a neurological disorder that baffles the medical community.
Aldridge said the study is a first step into understanding the beginnings of the development of the disorder.
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