We may be a step closer in understanding what causes autism, say University of Missouri researchers after finding differences between the facial characteristics of children who have autism and those who don't.
Kristina Aldridge, lead author and assistant professor of anatomy at the University of Missouri, began looking at facial characteristics of autistic children after another researcher, Judith Miles, professor emerita in the School of Medicine and the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, mentioned, "There is just something about their faces. They are beautiful, but there is just something about them."
Children with other disorders such as Down syndrome and fetal alcohol syndrome have very distinct facial features. Autism is much less striking, she says. You can't pick them out in a crowd of kids, but you can pick them out mathematically.
When researchers took three-dimensional images of the children, they discovered autistic children have a broader upper face with wider eyes, a shorter middle region of the face including the cheeks and nose and a broader or wider mouth and philtrum -- the area below the nose and above the top lip.
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Vitals - Autistic children have distinct facial features, study suggests
