Etiology and Early Diagnosis of Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Although neurodevelopmental disorders are very prevalent (for example Autism affects 1 out of every 88 children and dyslexia affects up to 15% of the population), the etiology of such disorders is not known. The purpose of this investigation is to identify common etiologies of neurodevelopmental disorders (i.e., speech delay, global developmental delay, autism) and determine if it is possible to find early indicators of the diagnosis and foster the potential for a better prognosis of these disorders. At this time the investigators examine patients with neurodevelopment disorders with various medical investigations, but the results of these investigations are not systematically evaluated. One of the goals of this research is to systematically examine this information in order to identify patterns of test abnormalities that have not been previously described. Another goal of this research is to identify the common etiologies typically identified by the medical evaluation, so we can further refine our approach. In addition, the investigators now have the ability to evaluate biological samples for biomarkers that have potential to be diagnostically useful.