EarliPoint Technology for Early Autism Diagnosis

Jul 11, 2025

ASD Healthcare

EarliPoint Technology for Early Autism Diagnosis

Early diagnosis of autistic children is essential because it allows interventions and supports to begin sooner, which can have a lasting positive impact throughout a child’s life. With an early diagnosis, children can access therapies earlier, receive greater understanding and support from caregivers and family members, and build communication and social skills that contribute to long-term success. Earlier identification often leads to earlier support, which is associated with improved outcomes later in life.

One promising approach to improving the diagnosis and early detection of conditions such as autism is the use of biomarkers.

What is a Biomarker?

A biomarker, or biological marker, is a measurable indicator of a biological process that can help predict a disease or health outcome. Biomarkers are objective and quantifiable characteristics of the body. For example, blood glucose levels are used as a biomarker for diabetes, while cholesterol levels can indicate an increased risk for heart disease. Biomarkers are valuable because they can support earlier detection and more accurate diagnosis of medical conditions.

Eye Tracking as a Biomarker for Autism:

Difficulty with social interaction is a core characteristic of autism. Autistic individuals may have challenges recognizing other people’s emotions or understanding how to respond in social situations. One well-studied biomarker related to autism involves patterns of visual attention during social interactions. For example, autistic individuals may spend less time looking at another person’s eyes or face and more time focusing on background objects or other details in the environment. Because these differences in gaze patterns have been extensively studied, technologies that track eye movements while individuals watch videos of social interactions may serve as useful biomarkers and tools to support autism diagnosis.

To see how gaze patterns can be used as a biomarker of autism, consider the image below. The picture shows two boys interacting. A child with autism will direct their attention to different parts of the image than a child without autism. The column on the left shows scenes from the video itself. The middle column displays where a child without autism looked while watching the video. This column includes a “heat map,” in which darker red areas indicate where the child spent the most time looking. It also includes a shaded image of the video, where the more colorful areas highlight the parts of the scene that received the most visual attention. The child without autism focused primarily on the boys’ faces and their hand gestures during the interaction.

The column on the right shows where a child with autism was looking while watching the same video. The autistic child spent more time looking at toys and background objects within the scene than on the people in the scene.

When researchers added up all of the time that the child without autism and the child with autism spent looking at different things in the video clip, they found that the child without autism spent most of their time looking at things that would give them information about what the two boys in the video were doing and feeling. The autistic child spent most of their time looking at things in the background environment – things that did not have to do with the boys in the video.

Autism Diagnosis

Autism can often be reliably diagnosed in children between 18 and 24 months of age. However, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, early signs of autism may appear even earlier in development. Some behaviors associated with autism, such as reduced eye contact, make eye-tracking technology a promising tool for early detection. Early identification is important because it allows children to access interventions and support services as soon as possible.

What is EarliPoint?

EarliPoint Health developed EarliPoint to help detect autism by measuring “social-visual engagement” by using eye-tracking technology. Social-visual engagement refers to how much attention a child gives to social interactions while watching video clips (as described above).

During the assessment, children watch videos of other children playing together on a tablet device equipped with small cameras around the screen that track the child’s eye movements. As the child watches videos, EarliPoint collects information about which parts of the scenes capture the child’s attention.

After the assessment is completed, the collected data are sent to EarliPoint Health for analysis. Based on the results, the company generates a report indicating the likelihood that the child may have autism. Below is an image of an EarliPoint device.

You can watch a short video to better understand EarliPoint here: https://youtu.be/zKEcAimzEN8

How can EarliPoint help you?

Mercer University School of Medicine is helping improve access to autism screening for rural families through a pilot program using EarliPoint technology. EarliPoint offers several advantages for families living in rural communities, where access to specialized autism evaluations may be limited. Research suggests that EarliPoint’s accuracy is comparable to traditional autism assessment methods, while also being less expensive. Wait times for EarliPoint testing through our pilot program are currently under 1 month, which is considerably shorter than the wait times for traditional testing (which are often over one year long!). In many cases, testing can be completed directly within a child’s local physician’s clinic, reducing the need for long-distance travel to specialty centers. This can help children receive evaluations and support services sooner. Mercer’s pilot program currently includes EarliPoint testing sites in Washington, Laurens, Berrien, Towns, Glynn, and Ware counties, expanding access to early autism detection across rural Georgia. If you would like to learn more about Mercer’s pilot program or receive additional information about EarliPoint, please contact the program at asd@mercer.edu.

Fast Facts:

EarliPoint correctly identifies 4 out of 5 children with autism.
EarliPoint is an FDA Authorized* tool for ages 16-96 months. *FDA Authorized means that EarliPoint has been granted permission to help clinicians evaluate autism based on current evidence (meaning it can be used now based on promising results). However, it is not yet FDA approved, which requires further clinical data.
EarliPoint can be performed in outpatient pediatric offices.
EarliPoint’s accuracy is comparable to traditional testing like ADOS test.
Georgia Medicaid will cover autism testing using EarliPoint.

Article by: Isabella Valentini and The Autism Toolkit