Cognoa, a company that makes digital therapeutics and diagnostic tools, recently submitted a new tool to the FDA that will enable pediatricians and parents to identify children with autism at a much younger age so they can get the care and support they get much sooner need. If the parents or the pediatrician have any concerns, the pediatrician will prescribe a Cognoa mobile app for the parents. The app asks parents to answer a questionnaire about their child’s behavioral patterns and upload two videos of their child in their natural environment. Once submitted, the responses and videos will be sent to a trained professional who will observe the responses and videos and provide their own posts. The child’s pediatrician also gives answers about the child’s behavior.
All of the answers are combined and fed into the Cognoa algorithm, which uses artificial intelligence to examine thousands of other cases involving children of different races, backgrounds, and genders, and indicate whether or not the child is on the autism spectrum. Based on the signs provided by the tool, and at their own discretion, a pediatrician can then diagnose a child with autism.
In addition to helping with diagnosis, the tool also aims to correct certain irregularities, such as: B. Children in black and Hispanic communities who go undiagnosed and girls who are later diagnosed as boys. In addition, pediatricians are currently referring children with suspected autism to specialists, which has created an overwhelming backlog that leads families to wait months, and sometimes years, for a diagnosis. Cognoa aims to speed up this process because it is possible to diagnose autism in children as young as eighteen months.
Cognoa conducted a clinical study of 425 participants, aged between 18 and 72 months, in which children were examined with their tool and a specialist doctor. The company plans to roll out this tool to pediatricians in the second half of 2021.
Source: Digital Trends
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