Autism Diagnosis, Eye Tracking, and What It Means for Families with Dr. Cheryl Tierney #239

Most kids in the U.S. aren't diagnosed with autism until after age 4, long past the window when early intervention makes the biggest difference. The problem isn't that clinicians don't care. It's that a traditional evaluation can take six to eight hours end to end, and there aren't enough specialists to go around. This week, Jeff sits down with Dr. Cheryl Tierney, a board-certified, fellowship-trained developmental pediatrician, professor of pediatrics at Penn State, and Chief Medical Officer at EarliPoint Health. For more than 25 years she has evaluated and diagnosed children with autism, learning, speech-language, attention, and sleep disorders. Dr. Tierney explains how EarliPoint's FDA-cleared eye-tracking system works: 12 minutes of natural video scenes, 120 data points captured per second, more than 86,000 data points if a child watches the full session. The result is an objective read on how a child uses eye gaze to learn from the world around them, plus proxy measures for social engagement, language, and cognition. She is clear about what it is not. It is not a standalone diagnosis, and it is not about forced eye contact. The conversation also covers what happens after diagnosis. Repeat assessments let clinicians see whether a child is closing the developmental gap in months instead of years, which means treatment can change course while it still matters. In this episode: Why "wait and see" became the default, and what it costs families How roughly 60 percent of referred children may not need a lengthy assessment Why clinicians using the tool report seeing 33 to 50 percent more patients What families say after going through it, especially those who have done both pathways Where payers and Medicaid are heading on coverage Why a language-agnostic tool matters for rural and non-English-speaking families Resources EarliPoint Health: https://earlipointhealth.com Find a provider near you (EarliPoint Network directory): https://earlipointhealth.com/earlipoint-network/ For parents: https://earlipointhealth.com/parents/ Research and publications: https://earlipointhealth.com/research/ Eye-Tracking-Based Measurement of Social Visual Engagement Compared With Expert Clinical Diagnosis of Autism (JAMA, 2023): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2808996 Development and Replication of Objective Measurements of Social Visual Engagement (JAMA Network Open, 2023): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2808909 Providers: request a demo or start a conversation: https://earlipointhealth.com/contact-us/ ............................................................... Autism weekly is now found on all of the major listening apps including apple podcasts, stitcher, Spotify, amazon music, and more. Subscribe to be notified when we post a new podcast. Autism weekly is produced by ABS Kids. ABS Kids is proud to provide diagnostic assessments and ABA therapy to children with developmental delays like Autism Spectrum Disorder. You can learn more about ABS Kids and the Autism Weekly podcast by visiting abskids.com.